


going up flying, going home

by antumbral



Category: Hockey RPF, Olympics RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Body Modification, Boys of Winter, Breathplay, Cameos, Canadian Men's Hockey Team, First Time, Hockey play, Hockey tournament, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Olympics, Pranks, Puck handling, Rivalry, Rough Sex, Scarification, Scars, Shenanigans, Slow Build, Team Bonding, Team Canada, Team Russia, gold medals, hockey IS the kink, ritual self-injury, self discovery, team feelings, team fic, vancouver 2010, violence of the hockey-related sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:42:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antumbral/pseuds/antumbral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2010, the best athletes in the world gathered in Vancouver for the Games of the thirty-first Olympiad. Of all the medals to be awarded at the Games, the host nation of Canada wanted one above all: the last medal to be awarded, gold in Men's Hockey. To this end, Canada assembled a team of superstars, the best and brightest in the NHL, led by Sidney Crosby. On the shoulders of that team they placed the hopes of the nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE read the tags for content and trigger warnings. I cannot stress that highly enough.
> 
> Written for the 2010 [rpf_big_bang](http://rpf-big-bang.livejournal.com/) challenge. I am so very grateful to my incredible artist, [slowascent](http://slowascent.livejournal.com/), who went above and beyond the call of duty, did amazing work and very patiently put up with my inability to choose a title until the very last minute. Many thanks also to my betas, sheesusnat, marienne_made, and littlestclouds for reassuring me when I was flipping out about this story, holding my hand, and beating the knots out of my plotting and grammar. For any interested, author's notes about research, resources, and miscellanea can be found [here](http://antumbral.livejournal.com/186363.html). Thank you for reading!

  
  


*

Sidney Crosby notices things. It starts before they land in Vancouver, on the tarmac in Columbus when the flight attendant blushes. "Welcome to your flight for this evening, gentlemen," she says by rote. "Please, take a seat on the plane anywhere that you like." It's the same thing that she'd said when he, Flower, and Weber had boarded the plane hours earlier in Pittsburgh, but this time there's real warmth to it.

Brent Seabrook ducks his head through the plane door and smiles at her, which explains the blushes. He and Duncan Keith shuffle wearily on board, wedging themselves between seats to stow gear. 'Anywhere on the plane that you like' isn't as generous an offer as it sounds; the cabin is cramped enough that none of them can stand upright, not even in the aisle. There isn't any discussion of who sits where -- Keith and Seabrook hunker down next to each other and Keith leans over on Seabrook's shoulder to sleep even as the flight attendant greets another person on the ramp.

It's Rick Nash, and he settles in with Weber. Toews is last -- more blushing from the flight attendant, so much that her hands hover nervously around her face and she forgets to tell him to sit anywhere he wants. He takes the seat next to Sidney, who notices the way his shirt pulls when he stretches to wrestle the formless shape of his gear bag into the overhead. When the compartment finally closes after a bit of shoving, Jonny seems almost to deflate into the seat. His eyes close and one hand stretches up to the side of his neck, squeezing at a tight muscle. He winces, flash of dark eyebrows. Around them the flight crew begins the final preparations for takeoff, droning the safety lecture and holding up a detached seat belt to demonstrate.

Sidney tilts his head toward Jonny's ear and whispers. "Did you guys win?"

Jonny nods, whispering back. "Shootout. Got pretty ugly." Sidney glances over his shoulder at Nash, who looks even worse for wear than the Chicago players. "He had a goal," Jonny mumbles, watching Sidney's focus.

Sidney rumbles a noise of acknowledgment. Jonny's head has flopped back against the seat rest, like it's too much for his spine to support him anymore. Even exhausted, Sidney notices that his seatmate keeps himself carefully compact. There's none of the easy sprawl of Keith and Seabrook, or even the casual touches of knees that Sidney can see between Nash and Weber -- two very large men sharing limited space. Jonny seems to make himself smaller, hold himself apart. Sidney scrunches minutely over toward the window to try and respect his seeming need for a personal bubble. "You sound like you're about done in."

Jonny nods again. "Tired. I'm gonna sleep." The syllables are muted, slurred with effort.

By the time they hit five thousand feet, he's out like a light. Sidney notices that Jonny's fingers curl into fists, and that he snores.

*

The room is simple, two double beds, thick comforters and plain walls. It has a balcony that looks out over the main street in the Village, the twin glass doors flanked by heavy curtains to block out the neon lights and the laughter of celebration on the ground. When Sidney opens the balcony doors, the air tastes like exotic foreign food cooked in woks and lingers stinging against his eyes with the suspended ozone tang of coming snow. Sidney inhales. So this is what the Games smell like.

Turning back to the room, there's a bag on the other bed and sounds of running water from behind the closed bathroom door. The handle twists; it's Toews.

Sidney grabs the cotton pants he uses for sleeping from his own bag and brushes past into the now-empty bathroom. When he comes out ten minutes later, the light is off in the room, but the orange and green that glares through from the street is more than enough for navigation. Toews has left the glass doors open a foot or so; the wind brushes goosebumps up on Sidney's skin. He didn't bring a sleep shirt. He never uses one. Most guys in the League don't, on the road, but Toews sleeps in exercise pants and a Blackhawks t-shirt, the neck of which is stretched out enough to show his collarbones. A stiff blast of cold draws shivers and Toews tugs the covers up to his nose.

For a moment Sidney hesitates, his hand on the door handles, but then instead he draws the felted curtains, leaving a space in front of where the doors let in the breeze. The bed isn't as comfortable as his own at home, but after a moment the blankets ward off the cold and Sidney sleeps to the sound of soft chatter from the streets and Jonny's halting, light snores.

*

He'd thought the press was bad in Pittsburgh, but he was wrong. Comparing the Pittsburgh media to the onslaught in Vancouver on Monday is like comparing a single kitten to a pride of lions, from the point of view of an antelope. By the time he manages to escape into the bowels of GM Center -- Canada Hockey Place, whatever they're calling it -- Sidney definitely feels hunted.

He's the last one into the dressing room because of the throng, and even before he opens the door he has a dark feeling in that place underneath his stomach that says he should have shown up earlier; that being last was a mistake for someone so young on the team who already carries the A. Brodeur looks up to watch him as he steps inside, pausing with a scuffed shinpad in one hand, a can of silicone buffer in the other. Niedermayer catches his eye and frowns. "The press," Sidney says in explanation, and Niedermayer dips his chin in understanding.

Standing in front of his dressing room stall space, Sidney takes a moment to stare. His skates are gone. In their place is a pair of glittery pink figure skates, complete with curly-cue laces. They have purple stars on one side. Sidney knows without checking that they're child's size two; he's seen them before. Toews steps out of the showers with a towel around his waist and his underarmor shirt already on.

"Flower," Jonny says and glances covertly at the culprit, wiping water off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Sidney's already headed across the room, giving the enormous carpeted maple leaf logo in the center a wide berth out of respect.

"Marc," he growls. He only ever uses Flower's first name when he's pissed. As a Penguin, Fleury is the one person in the dressing room -- besides perhaps Toews and Doughty, who are both even younger than Sidney himself -- with whom he can credibly pull rank. He's also the one person in the dressing room who should know better than this. Flower knows how uptight Sidney gets in the run-up to big games; he spent the Stanley Cup Finals watching Sidney sweat, work himself to exhaustion, and snap at anyone who wasn't taking the game seriously enough. He also knows about the pink skates; they're a running joke in the Pens' locker room, where Talbot thinks they're hilarious. He knows how deeply Sidney is not amused. Flower just grins more widely at him, unrepentant. 

"Is something wrong, Sidney?"

"Skates. Now."

"But you already have skates. They are in your locker."

" _Flower_."

An even bigger grin. "I told you, Sidney. They are in your locker."

Sidney whirls around, prepared to point to the skates which are _not his skates_ currently sitting in his dressing stall, but sure enough, the pink skates have vanished and in their place sit a familiar pair that actually fit his feet.

"Canada can get along with two goalies. I don't think they'll care if I kill the third one," Sidney mutters darkly at Flower, not turning around. He isn't going to take his eyes off his skates again.

"Ah, you would care if you killed the third goalie, because the Penguins would be sad." Now Flower's just laughing at him.

"One of these days," Sidney grits out, and stalks back across to start getting dressed. Toews is already fully dressed out and watches him curiously.

"You really don't like people messing with your stuff."

"Flower knows how much I hate those damn skates." Sidney twists to fasten the straps on his pants then reaches for the hanger with his sweater. He's wearing the red practice sweater today. Jonny is wearing white. Sidney watches out of the corner of his eye as Jonny fidgets backward a little, anxious shifts of hips and skates.

"I had your skates in my bag," Toews says finally. "Flower gave them to me to do the switch when you went to talk to him." Sidney's mouth thins out into a tight-pressed line. "I wouldn't have done it if I knew it was a thing with you."

"Don't," says Sidney and turns to face him full-on, still annoyed and looming. Instead of shrinking back or casting his eyes down as if he's sorry, Toews meets him head-on, open expression and slight lift of his chin. He stands up, and since Sidney isn't backing down they face each other close. Even though Toews has a few inches on him in height, the anger makes Sidney feel taller. Toews has very dark eyes.

"It won't happen again." Somehow when Jonny says them, the words carry weight, an unexpected sense of gravity and consideration. The force there makes Sidney think that not only will Toews not be pranking him again, anyone else on the team who wants to mess with Sidney's things will have to go through Jonny first.

Sidney nods and waits for Jonny to be the first to back away before he turns to his own stall again and reaches to his shelf for stick tape.

*

"It's not working," Babcock says in undertones to Hitchcock, holding the battered clipboard over his mouth so players on the ice can't see. The paper beneath the clip is covered in doodled line combinations, name after name paired together then crossed out, circled, underlined, erased. Sidney notices and watches with the corners of his eyes, eavesdrops as he thumbs at the fraying edge of the tape on his stick. He'll need to rewrap it before shootout drills.

"He takes up too much ice."

"Well," the clipboard droops and hearing becomes easier, "we knew what we were getting when we picked him. He's always centered in Chicago, he's never had to play wing."

"Fucking natural centers."

Babcock laughs, echoes, "Fucking centers."

Hitch sniffs and raises an eyebrow in consideration. "We could move Richards. 18-12-61, then bump Toews to the Crosby-Staal line."

"He's a fucking natural center, what the hell is he going to do out there with Crosby?" Babcock shakes his head in quick denial, his focus following Toews's progress up and down the ice. Sidney averts his eyes and rips the tape away from his stick. It splits with the force of the tug, and he picks at the dangling end to get a grasp on the bits still stuck to the wood. Babcock shifts his weight from side to side. "We could bench him. Thirteenth forward, five minutes a game and sit."

Sidney looks up, watches across eighty feet of slushy ice as Toews rips the puck away from Niedermayer and spins around, looking for a linemate for the pass. Thornton is out of position, three strides too far back and tangled up with Doughty. The pass goes wide. Toews has to cross the whole ice, his skates slicing snow up against the boards right in front of Sidney, but he's the first one to pick up the recovery. Thornton doesn't get untangled in time to support him. Jonny dumps the puck in and idles off to the rear corner, watching the Staal line come out and pick up play. Not his fault. Sidney himself wouldn't have done it any differently.

"Bench him," Hitchcock's voice sounds resigned. Sidney glances over at the two coaches and watches their crossed arms, their stony faces. He feels something unexpected boil up behind his sternum and under his lungs.

Babcock shrugs his eyebrows, eloquent expression above passionless stance and shoulders. "Split Toews and Morrow for time on the fourth, nobody's feelings get hurt, we don't have to worry about it. Put him out on the kill, maybe. If he takes up space he'll be good at that."

"Bench him," Hitchcock repeats, skeptical.

Sidney checks the new tape job, clenches his hands over the familiar slim-wrapped handle, and rolls both legs back across the boards to head out to the ice. Toews whips by him with the puck, all alone with both defensemen whirling lost and confused in his wake. He dekes twice, hesitates for a half-step, and scores on Brodeur. The goalie laughs and nudges the puck into his glove from the back of the net, hurls it at Toews's head. Jonny laughs as well, and Keith skates over to bat at the back of his helmet.

Sidney shifts to an inside edge and cuts a quick turn, skates back to the bench, careful not to skid the stop, careful not to be conspicuous. "Sixteen deserves ice time, he works too hard for us not to use him," he says, trying to sound like an alt captain and not like a twenty-two-year-old kid talking to men who've been champions at this game since before he was born. "Put him out with Iggy. Hell, put him on my line before you bench him. I'll deal with it."

A deep, hard line appears between Babcock's eyebrows; Sidney wonders how many minutes of frowning it would take for that canyon to become permanent. Hitch shuffles his feet, glances at the head coach, and tries his best to mirror Babcock's expression. "Taken under consideration," Babcock says at last. Sidney nods and heads back out to rejoin his linemates. They'll probably think he was just sticking up for his roommate. Still, the coaches and the media and the fans are all expecting him to carry this team, and if Sidney's going to do that, then his opinion will need to bear some sort of weight. Maybe he helped out. At least he tried.

On the ice they set up for four-by-four drills. Keith attaches himself to Toews's side with a rough arm around the neck and a faked headlock. Toews struggles ineffectually, but this is clearly an old game for both of them, and he isn't trying hard to escape. Keith is chuckling and happy and he refuses to leave Toews behind, pulling Niedermayer over to start forming a special teams unit. Maybe Sidney's not the only one who's trying to help out. He wonders if Toews knows, if he realizes what Keith's up to. Jonny cuffs Keith lightly on the back of the head, and Sidney thinks that maybe he does.

*

The blankets are just warming up in the cocoon he's built around himself when Jonny steps out of the bathroom, releasing a cloud of steam that dissipates quickly in the cold room. He's already wearing his worn-out shirt and sleep pants, and the steam makes them stick to his ribs, the tops of his thighs. This time it's Sidney who's left the doors to the balcony open, enjoying the contrast of the wintery air and the warmth of the comforter. Jonny's hand lingers over the light switch for a moment then drifts away, leaving the room dark as he crawls quickly into bed.

It's only just dusk outside, faint haze of deep blue clinging to the horizon between the crevices and arroyos of the skyscrapers. Twelve hours until tomorrow, until press conferences and team meetings and careful meals and naps and Norway. They'll win tomorrow.

"We'll win tomorrow," says Toews into the dark, apropos of nothing. He isn't reading Sidney's mind; no one on the team has thought of anything else for the past few days. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we win.

"Yes."

"You'll be fine," Jonny says, confident. Sidney snorts. Of course he will. He'll be fine. For a moment, bundled up snug and cosy against the cold, he allows himself to envy Jonny. Toews has no pressure on him, no expectations but the ones he gives himself. Even the coaches don't expect much, and the rest of the country couldn't care less about a fourth-line forward. He doesn't have to drag himself out of bed at nine tomorrow and face the sharks with reporters' faces. Sidney snorts again and uses one foot beneath the blanket to scratch at his calf.

"Hey." Toews's eyes are open, watching him from the other bed, and Sidney turns onto his side so that he can watch back.

"Hey?" repeats Sidney at last when after a few seconds nothing more is forthcoming. Jonny shakes his head wordlessly, keeping to himself whatever he was going to say, but his gaze lingers on Sidney as though he's looking for something. Searching, with the same focused intensity that he brings to everything he does. Jonny is the only person Sidney has ever met who could probably eat cereal or brush his teeth with intensity.

It's weird, and it's not the kind of thing that roommates do, but if Toews is going to stare then Sidney will feel free to stare back. So he studies the funny shape of Jonny's ear, the way his cheek mashes up against the pillow, the wrinkles in the worn neck of his t-shirt. Jonny has very long eyelashes. The warmth of the blankets lulls Sidney into slower breaths, long blinks with weighted eyelids that don't want to reopen easily. He doesn't know if Jonny has found whatever he seemed to be looking for, because he dozes off with Jonny still silent and intent across from him.

*

Sidney ducks his head, hunches over and concentrates on panting. The world has a lot of air in it, but he can't seem to get nearly enough into his lungs. A line of sweat trickles down from his hair into the corner of his eye, stings. He, Nash, and Iggy were the last shift of the first period against the Norwegians.

"Well, that was an unmitigated disaster," says Getzlaf from off to his right. Sidney glares at him and he shrugs. "Just telling the truth."

"Scoreless isn't a disaster," says Lemaire, marching into the room and over to the whiteboard. Sidney lifts his head to listen to the strategy revamp that's no doubt coming. "Losing would be a disaster. Scoreless is a fixable problem, and we are going to fix it."

The room fairly vibrates with nervous energy as Lemaire throws up a game plan in red and black marks on the board. Richards bounces his foot incessantly, Perry twists his stick in ever-quickening circles, Marleau tosses a tennis ball ferociously from hand to hand. Keith grinds down on his mouthguard between his teeth loudly enough that Sidney can hear the rubber squeak from ten feet away. It's worse than even the Stanley Cup finals. This is a team full of desperate men, and they don't know each other well enough yet for the coaches or captains to say the right things and calm everyone. Outside the door is the muffled hum of reporters from every country in the world, and above them the roar of the crowd seeps through a half-dozen feet of concrete, louder even than the reporters. It presses down on them all, constant trembling reminder of how many eyes are watching, how many people want this. Lu has his mask off and is rubbing little circles into his temples, muttering. Marty pats him on the back.

Off in the very corner of the dressing room at the end of the benches, Toews is a pocket of calm, detached in a way that reminds Sidney of the plane flight on the way up. He seems terrifically untouched by all the pressure, and Sidney clears his throat to stop his jaw from clenching with envy. Toews doesn't have to deal with the weight of being the Next One. He can just play the game, and he's playing well; Babcock stuck him in on the kill and he'd managed a short-handed breakaway.

"-- so from the dot --," and an _X_ on the board, "-- to the shooter in the high slot --," another _X_ , and a dotted line for the path of the puck, " -- then take the shot and everyone crash for the rebound. Real simple." Lemaire stops talking to change markers and in the short silence Keith rises from where he's been sitting by Seabrook, walks the length of the room, and sits down by Toews. He's the only one on his feet; the whole team notices. The creak of his gear sounds loud and obvious since no one is speaking, somehow embarrassing in an itchy, ill-defined way. Toews raises an eyebrow at him in question and Keith shakes his head, a message that Toews seems to understand, because he relaxes back and focuses once more on Lemaire's new plan for the power play.

Sidney concentrates on Keith, though. Little by little Keith relaxes and seems to center himself, as though his captain's calm is contagious. In the next pause Seabrook moves to be near Keith again -- another lone player walking, with the whole team staring -- but neither Toews nor Keith seem in the least bit surprised, and when Seabrook settles down, the little pack of Chicago players is suddenly the most serene, focused area of the room. A glance at Babcock finds him standing by Niedermayer, their heads together and whispering to each other, both taking surreptitious glances toward the end of the benches where Keith is now slouched back, laughing with Seabrook at a private joke. Toews smiles fondly at them. Babcock raises an eyebrow at the sight and Niedermayer nods that he's seen.

When the red light above the doorway goes on to mark the end of intermission, Lemaire jabs a marker in Sidney's direction. "Kid, you're on first face-off." Sidney nods and they shuffle into a line for Lu to lead them back out onto the ice. Keith seems loose, the most confident that Sidney's seen since they set foot in Vancouver. Their skates make gentle sucking noises as they step on the rubber mats that line the route from the dressing room to the ice. Sidney sets his mouth in determination and imagines the sheet, the goal, himself shooting, the light, the ripple of the crowd jumping up. He tries to feel it in his arms through the tunnel: the exact weight of the stick when it makes contact with the puck, the wind that it'll create on the backswing. He pins the idea of that perfect shot in his mind and steps out through the door to the deafening yells of the crowd; it's time to go out and win.

*

After the adrenaline of the Norway game, there's simply no way that Sidney's body will let him fall asleep at a normal hour. It's a problem he has with the Penguins too, staying up well past midnight in the aftermath of big games simply because he's too keyed up for rest. The easiest way to deal with it is to simply wait out the rush, then sleep when his system finally crashes. To this end, once the last of the reporters have left the green room and Hitchcock has spent fifteen minutes explaining the next day's practice agenda to the captains, Sidney returns to the room, hangs up his suit, and changes into jeans to go back out again.

Jonny is curled in bed when he returns, already in t-shirt and shorts for sleeping, concentrating at punching away on his phone. He looks up when Sidney grabs for a pair of jeans. "You going out?"

"Yeah. Still --," and Sidney shakes out his hands, bounces on the balls of his feet, trying to explain without words the effects of the adrenaline. "Thought I'd maybe go get food, see if anyone is still up around the ping-pong tables for a game or something."

Jonny's eyes drift unfocused for a moment, thoughtful, then land back on Sidney's face. "X-Box?"

"I could go for that."

"Give me a minute, let me get dressed." Jonny snatches up a pair of his own jeans, shucks the sleep shorts and pulls on the jeans over dark colored briefs, then roots around in his dresser for a shirt. When he finds one -- Grateful Dead, looks vintage -- he ducks into the bathroom and emerges a few seconds later with it on. Sidney blinks. "Okay," says Jonny, pulling on shoes, "Let's go."

They phone Doughty and Seabrook on their way to the Village's all-night cafe. Keith tags along, and the five of them play Mario Kart until 2 a.m., giving up only when they have to wake Doughty off the beanbag that he crashed out on in the lounge. With Jonny's help, Sidney escorts Doughty back to the room he shares with Boyle, then they both return to their own room and fall into bed. Sleep comes easily this time.

*

"We could get lunch," says Marty eagerly and pats him on the chest. "'Lu says they have bacon cheeseburgers."

There are twenty-two reporters standing around him, a vast tangle of cameras and microphones and cords, pen-sized digital recorders and men wearing headphones to balance the sound levels. Maybe fifteen of them chuckle, all of them older men; bacon is a long-running gag between Marty and the Canadian media. The others frown, unfamiliar with the joke, and Sidney wonders how many articles about Marty's weight will show up in tomorrow's papers.

"Do you really think bacon burgers are the best thing for an athlete who --," one of the younger reporters begins, and Sidney cuts him off.

"We're not going to eat cheeseburgers," -- Marty's face falls into a soft _O_ of disappointment and Sidney stifles a laugh -- "but the food here at the Village has been really good. I'm looking forward to trying the Mongolian." He's looking forward to no such thing, but it's exotic enough to get the jackals' minds off of Marty. He does this sort of thing routinely in Pittsburgh -- deflecting attention to himself whenever reporters get too close to a sensitive area for a teammate -- but it feels momentarily strange to act so protective of a goalie who spends most of the year on a different team.

"Sidney, do you think it's important for the hockey team to be seen with the other athletes this Games, or are you guys trying to keep to yourselves and stay focused on your play?" Sidney barely avoids rolling his eyes. There is no win to that question; either he comes off as sociable but not serious enough about hockey -- a cardinal sin with the weight of the entire country's hopes around his neck -- or he comes off as an antisocial jerk with no life outside his sport.

Marty rescues him. "Food," says Marty urgently, apparently reduced by hunger to single-syllable words. " _Foooooooood._ "

Sidney runs his fingers through his hair and smiles. "Alright, alright, I'm coming. Sorry guys, we're going to go eat."

The reporters mutter anxiously, but with a few strategic shoves from Marty and apologetic looks from Sidney, they make good their escape.

"Thanks," says Sidney, once they're safely within the confines of the Athlete's Village, where none of the jackals have credentials to come through the gates.

Marty grins. "You looked like you were about to bite somebody's head off, so I figured maybe you needed rescuing."

"It's been a long morning." Even after the late night, he'd been up by 7 a.m. running a schedule of shower, breakfast, practice, shower, and then press junkets. In a choice between the hockey on-ice and the media, Sidney isn't sure which exhausts him more. Babcock still isn't happy with their team chemistry and keeps changing his linemates; the reporters aren't happy with the Russian team's accessibility and keep asking Sidney more questions to make up for the ones they can't ask Ovechkin.

"No kidding." Marty bites at his thumbnail then points further up the sidewalk. "Oh hey." They're joined by Nash, Perry, and Keith. Marty glances down at his phone, then up again at Sidney. "I texted to let them know you were eating."

Sidney catches the slip. " _I'm_ eating?"

"Yeah, I'm not really that hungry, you just looked like you could use the help. I kind of figured I'd take a nap. My kids are going to call me at two, so I thought I'd get some shut-eye before that."

Nash pokes Marty in the side. "Don't you dare start wasting away on us." Brodeur bats his hand away, and after a brief tussle, Nash ends up with a victory in the form of a headlock. "Oh look, _honey_ , there's the figure skaters! Isn't that quaint?" he says loudly, and gives Marty a smacking kiss on the cheek before releasing him.

Three really pretty girls are coming towards them on the sidewalk. Sidney thinks they're actually skiers, though he can't be sure, and at Rick's pronouncement they slow down. Sidney watches as one's eyebrows climb toward her hairline, and she takes the girl next to her urgently by the wrist, tugging. All three cross the street and hurry away.

"You're an ass," says Marty flatly.

"I'm an angel," says Rick, and bats his eyelashes. "Isn't that right, _honey_? Besides, it's not like you were looking. I think your wife and kids would agree."

"I'm not the only one here who might be looking," Marty points out. "What if Sid --."

"-- He's Sidney fucking Crosby," Rick interrupts. "If he wants to get some ass at this Olympics, he'll get some. Hell, --"

"I'm right here," says Sidney loudly. The others ignore him.

"-- there is no one in this whole Village that should be more knee-deep in pussy than Sidney Crosby."

"Shaun White," says Keith helpfully.

Rick cocks his head to the side, gives Keith a considering look, and nods. "Point. Anyway, as I was saying. He's Sidney fucking Crosby, the pussy should be falling all over him. He doesn't need some washed up fat goalie getting him tail."

"I am not washed up," says Marty with great dignity. Keith snickers and Marty cranes his head back over his shoulder to meet Duncan's eyes. "Hey, where's your wife?"

"In the cafeteria. He and Tazer are saving us spots." Sidney doesn't think too hard about why Keith doesn't even blink at the 'wife' in reference to Seabrook. "Come on, hurry up."

They all present their credentials outside the cafeteria, then again in the coat check line, where Sidney passes off his jacket to a guy who seems struck dumb to be acquainted with him. "Thanks," he says, brushing the snow off one shoulder before handing over his red windbreaker.

"I --. It's --. We --," says the coat checker, then visibly snaps his jaw shut and thrusts a check ticket at Sidney's face, clutching the windbreaker to his chest like a security blanket. Sidney takes the ticket and waits to see if he's actually going to put the jacket away, but after a long silence that stretches far into the realm of uncomfortable, Sidney gives up and turns toward the cafeteria proper, jogging to catch up with the others.

"You're not going to see that coat again," says Perry matter-of-factly. Sidney sighs.

At the other end of the large dining room, two hands are waving in the air. "Wife," says Nash, snickering, and Keith punches him casually in the ear then saunters on toward their saved seats, while Nash clutches his wounded head and makes pained noises.

Seabrook and Toews have Marleau with them and are saving a bunch of chairs at a long, straight table, athletes from other teams on both sides of the chunk they've got reserved. Sidney collapses into a chair between Toews and a man wearing the orange-and-black uniform of the Dutch speed skating team. Sidney recognizes the uniform from television, though not the man. "Long morning?" Toews says, and Sidney nods.

"Perry thinks I just lost my jacket to the coat-check guy." He has to raise his voice a little. The room is spacious and airy, but it's also full of people in conversation. A normal speaking voice would get lost in the din.

Jonny gives him a puzzled look. "But if you checked it in --."

"He seemed a little possessive about keeping it. I don't know if I'll get it back." Sidney leans back against the chair's padding and arches his back to stretch. Sitting down feels good after doing press on his feet all morning.

Jonny looks him up and down, taking in his formal interview shirt. "If you don't see it again, you can use my jacket until we get back to the room. At least I'm wearing a sweatshirt." Toews is also wearing a hoodie over the sweatshirt and a longsleeved t-shirt under it. Sidney saw him pull all the layers on that morning over the omnipresent short sleeved t-shirt after Toews got out of the shower. They'd joked about how Jonny mummifies himself and Sidney had realized, to his surprise, that despite being on a team with the guy and practicing with him for four days now, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Toews shirtless. With all the fabric he's wearing, Sidney won't feel too guilty about taking him up on the offer of his jacket. Toews pats the table beside himself. "Go grab food. Your spot will be here when you get back."

Sidney nods gratefully and rises. "Thanks."

"No problem," Jonny says and takes a bite of his chicken scallopini.

*

When overtime ends against Switzerland, the whole team sits through an unbearable pause while the Zambonis do their thing. Lemaire takes the opportunity to review the scouting report on Hiller for them, while Babcock fills out the shooter list for the refs. Sidney checks the tape on his stick and grinds his teeth into his mouthpiece. For all their vaunted neutrality, he could happily kick every single citizen of Switzerland in the balls at this moment. Especially Jonas Hiller, who picked the worst possible night to play out of his mind.

"Kid, you're up first," says Babcock, pen sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and Sidney nods. "Toews, second. Getzy, third."

Marty paces the ice on the other side of the boards like a prisoner or a man possessed. The entire team watches his progress. "Marty," Babcock says at last, "there's not much we can give you on their shooters. Shootout scouting on the Swiss was a little light." His tone is wry. Brodeur shrugs and hefts his stick as though he's testing the weight of it. "You know the report on you is high corner, glove side. The most we can tell you is watch for those."

Marty nods again, bangs the stick twice against the boards. "I got this," he says, and heads out to his crease to rough up the ice.

Sidney takes a deep breath and focuses on Hiller at the other end of the ice. He's worked on this, on the shootout. He knows what shot he wants -- backhand drag and roof it -- and winning is just a matter of faking until Hiller goes down and he gets a decent look at empty twine. The first Swiss skater steps out onto the ice and heads towards the goal, but Sidney ignores him and doesn't take his eyes off the Swiss keeper. He doesn't need to watch the Jumbotron to know if the other team's shot went in. The crowd goes deafening behind them when Marty makes the save, and Sidney takes a deep breath and blinks at Hiller.

"Kid," says Babcock.

The puck is at center ice, tiny black dot placed precisely on the red line. Sidney circles it, takes a final focusing breath. He taps his stick once on the ice for luck and pulls the puck to his tape.

Hiller doesn't go down.

Deke backhand, forehand shuffle, backhand again and still Hiller won't fucking drop. Sidney isn't even breathing and he's closing on the goal too fast, not enough space now to really roof it. Two more strides and the backhand is impossible, he's too close to get any air under it. There's only one option left, and Sidney shifts instinctively: try and slip it in just at the side of the goal if Hiller can't get to the post quickly enough. Sidney pushes off as hard as he can -- speed is the only way to do this -- but Hiller follows him and _now_ he goes down, slides all the way across so that Sidney's shot bounces harmlessly off a pad.

The ref waves his arms. No goal, and the crowd's, "Oh," of disappointment echoes exactly what Sidney himself is feeling. He wants to punch something, maybe punch Hiller, but instead Sidney steers the rebound back to the nearest linesman and heads for the bench.

Toews is up next and Sidney watches him instead of the Swiss man now out against Marty. Toew's face is a mask, pure tunnel-vision, and Sidney wonders if that's what he himself looks like when he's concentrating. He doesn't think so; Sidney's never seen anyone look so tightly locked down onto a goal. There's a burning intensity in his eyes and in the way Jonny's breathing hard already, as though he's already skating or as if the effort of zeroing in to just him and the goalie is enough of itself to start him winded. Babcock doesn't even say his name when it's time for Toews to head out -- between the crowd screaming for Marty and the concentration, Sidney isn't sure that Jonny would hear it if he did. Instead Babcock just taps him on the shoulder with a little push.

Toews doesn't take his eyes off of Hiller after he sets foot on the ice. Never even glances down at the puck, and Sidney wonders what it feels like to have that lazer-focus directed straight at you. Just watching gives him chills.

Head up, staring contest all the way, three strides and Hiller does go down for Jonny, pretty as can be. The backhand after is also a thing of beauty, but Hiller gets his glove up just in time. It's tipped away.

They're still scoreless.

Jonny comes back to the bench shaking his head, mouth twisted in disgust, and shrugs it off when Sidney lays a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," says Sidney, but whatever else he would have said gets drowned out in the crowd's euphoria at Marty's next save.

Getzlaf, their third shooter, doesn't score either. He knows Hiller, sees him every day in practice for the Ducks, but when he tries to go close and five-hole it doesn't work.

"Sidney," says Babcock, screaming to be heard over the crowd. "Sid, you're up."

"Go high," yells Getzlaf. "You won't beat him five-hole, not today."

"Come on, Kiddo. Atta boy, Kid." Sidney can't make out whose voice it was, but the sound is comforting, the cadence exactly like something that he might hear back in Pittsburgh.

There really isn't time to be nervous. Sidney catches Hiller's eye, glares, turns his back to circle the puck, then looks up again.

The ref gives him the whistle.

Hiller doesn't go down.

Backhand, stickhandle, toe-drag for a half-stride, and suddenly it's like a green light comes on in Sidney's head. While Hiller isn't _down_ completely in butterfly, he's working his legs further and further apart so that he can spring side-to-side if Sidney tries to wrap one around him. Legs that far apart mean that he's low to the ice.

There's an empty corner blocker-side.

Sidney gives it everything he's got, a half-stride for momentum before he bangs it high and fast.

The net moves. The fans behind the net go nuts. The red light comes on.

Sidney thinks his lungs might be exploding, chest somehow both weightless and tight at the same time. The building is definitely exploding, and the crowds at the boards are going insane when he circles back to skate down the line for fist bumps. Toews thumps him on the head when he slides back into his spot on the bench. "You nailed it," Jonny says, and Sidney has to read his lips; it's too loud to hear the words, even from only a couple feet away.

Sidney beams at him and mouths "Killed that fucker," hoping Jonny can see what he means. The way Jonny searches his face feels like tunnel-vision all over again, and Sidney doesn't ever want to find himself on the hostile end of that focus. With Jonny laughing and studying him and intent, Sidney looks away to the other end of the rink.

If he'd thought it was loud before, it's nothing to when Marty makes the final save and they've finally _finally_ , thank you _Jesus_ , won the thing. Piling over the boards to go congratulate Marty, Sidney knows he's screaming his head off just as loudly as the fans, and can't be bothered to care. It was too close, it went on longer than it should, but they _won_.

Sidney gets his helmet banged down around his ears more than once by an over-exuberant teammate, and somewhere in the melee he loses his gloves, but after a brief mob around the goal they line up to shake hands, circle up with sticks high to salute the fans, and head off toward the green room. It's sobering; if there's anything to take the edge off his joy at winning, it's his dread at facing the media after that near-disaster of a shootout. Sidney lingers, holds the door at the end of the rink open for the rest of the team, putting off the moment when he'll have to stop hearing these cheers.

Someone presses up behind him, wraps an arm around his neck in a loose mockery of a headlock. Sidney stiffens and cranes his head first to one side then the other, until he can twist enough to just see the #16 on the sleeve. Toews.

Jonny squeezes him in a half-hug, laughing in his ear, then leaves his arm loosely around Sidney's shoulder, body up against Sidney's back and hand draped casually against Sidney's chest, until the rest of the team is through the door. They're the last two to step off the ice. Sidney can still hear his name in the cheers when the door closes.

*

He steps out of the shower and reaches for the towel to dry his hair, then drops it on the floor. It's still wet. Hockey players tend to go through towels like crazy; between practices, games, weight training, makeup for media appearances, and steam saunas to keep the cramps at bay, Sidney sometimes showers more in a day than most people do in a week. He's the laundry service's worst nightmare. There are spare towels in the closet next to the kitchenette, and it's not like everyone on the team doesn't see him naked every day. Sidney steps out of the bathroom and stops dead in his tracks.

"Jesus," is all he can think to say. Now he understands why he's never seen Toews naked, or even shirtless. His chest and ribs have scars on them, pale lines that wrap up his sides and across his pecs.

Jonny freezes, then grabs a t-shirt from the bed and jerks it roughly down over his head. "Jonny, what the hell?" Sidney reaches towards him then freezes again when Toews takes a startled step back. A red-hot blush climbs up his throat and over his cheekbones, and his eyes are wide and frightened. "What the hell?" Sidney repeats.

The weird thing is, those scars weren't random. They weren't blotchy like from a car wreck or simple and clean like a surgery. They were figures, shapes -- lacy and too intricate to be anything but purposeful. Some of the lines were thicker and some thinner, but together they unmistakably formed designs. Sidney even recognizes one of them, he's seen the depiction etched on the gold medal he won at world juniors. It's a stylized skater, head up as if looking for a pass. Sidney stares at the t-shirt as though he could see through the fabric, trying to figure out why Toews has a scar like that on his ribs.

"Just drop it." Jonny's voice is icy. Sidney jerks his gaze up to Toews's face and is surprised at the hostility there.

"But --." It feels like something a team captain, even an alt captain, should be concerned about.

"Drop. It."

"O-Okay," says Sidney, because he isn't sure what else he _should_ say. Jonny stares him down, stubborn set to his jaw, until Sidney feels acutely aware of the fact that he is still naked and Jonny is now fully dressed. A drop of water runs down the back of his neck. "I was just going to --," he pushes a hand weakly in the direction of the linen closet, " -- just going to get a towel."

Toews says nothing, but turns away and yanks the covers down on his bed with enough force that Sidney flinches. He watches for another few seconds, but Jonny won't look back up at him, so Sidney turns around and leaves toward the kitchenette. The door to the room closes behind him a few seconds later.

Towel in hand, he pauses for a moment before he steps back into his room, runs the cloth over his hair until it's no longer dripping. He gets a glass of water from the little sink above the minibar, and sips it slowly. He deposits the now-soaked towel in a heap next to the door for housekeeping. He's about to pour water into the little coffeemaker to heat when he realizes that he's avoiding the moment when he has to face Jonny again, and Sidney's never been that kind of coward.

The lights are off when he opens the door again. Jonny is a lump of blankets, turned away from the door and from Sidney's bed. The balcony door is open and the wind from outside tastes like snow. For a moment Sidney opens his mouth to say something, but when he realizes he still has no idea what he's thinking, much less what he should say to Jonny, he closes it again. Pulling on his sleep pants by feel alone, Sidney slides beneath the comforter of his own bed and stares at Toews's motionless back. The revelers have left the streets outside silent and dim before he manages sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mother _fucker_ ," Dan Boyle yells, bent double and clutching at his stomach. "God _dammit_ , Tazer, I'm on your fucking team, man. I've got to play in two days." The puck skitters away across the ice, Toew's nuclear shot on goal blocked by Boyle's body. Sidney spins, takes two strides back, and corrals it. Toews has been a Howitzer all day. They're playing scrimmage-style, red jerseys versus black, trying out new lines. In fifteen minutes, Toews has scored three times on Luongo and has two assists.

On the other side of the ice, there's a murmur on the bench. "All right guys, bring it in," Babcock shouts, so Sidney bounces the puck onto the flat of his stick and carries it with him over to the bench, where the others are congregating. By unspoken agreement, the teams bunch into groups: red sweaters to the left of where Babcock stands in the middle and black sweaters to the right. Sidney goes to the right, and reaches across Seabrook to grab a water bottle and spray down his face.

Babcock glances down at his clipboard, face drawn into lines, tense as he's been all day. "Toews, I want to see you on a line with Iginla, and --," he pauses and chews for a moment on the cap of his pen, "-- and Morrow. Mo, you and Bergie swap jerseys so that you're on red, and then I want the Toews line out first. Sharks line, you guys stay together, we'll see you out second for red. Bergie, you're in Mo's spot with the Crosby line for now, we may move you later. Getzy, stick with Crosby, and Crosby line out first for black."

Brenden strips his black jersey off in a rustle of pads and tosses it to Bergie. It falls to the ice in a heap when Patrice's wayward grab misses, so Patrice lifts it gingerly, sniffs, and winces. "Gross, coach." Morrow is going through similar grimacing motions on the other side of the benches.

"Deal with it," Babcock snaps through gritted teeth. "We went four fucking rounds into a shootout with goddamn Switzerland. Right now this team has bigger problems than body odor. You don't like it, you can ride pine." For a moment, Sidney is concerned that the pen in Babcock's hand is going to break.

Bergie dips his head and murmurs, "Sorry, eh."

"All right, get back out. We'll do ten minutes this time, see how things look to go from there." Babcock shoves the pen back into his mouth and chomps down on it again. When Sidney turns away toward center ice to take the faceoff, he catches Toews out of the corner of his eye and feels the back of his neck prickle. Jonny is staring at him -- no, not staring, _glaring_ \-- and it's not outright hostile, but it's certainly not a friendly look. Sidney feels pinned and examined, transfixed enough that he can't quite look away until Lemaire blows the whistle and they both push off towards center ice.

Lemaire is on puck-dropping duties today, acting as referee and linesman both. Sidney lines up across from Toews, crouches. The key to winning faceoffs, he's found, is not to watch the ref's hand as so many coaches have told him, but instead to watch the forearm. That's where the movement starts, and it gives him a jump on most forwards if he can start his stick sweep just when that hand opens. Toews is the exception. They haven't faced each other often, but Toews seems to have a sixth sense for exactly when the puck will hit, and it's a toss-up between them for who actually gets the puck.

Sidney wins this one.

The biscuit skitters back to Getzlaf, who immediately dumps it deep towards Marty in the red goal. Sidney gives chase and manages to settle it in the corner after a few rough bounces. Mo should be behind him, waiting near the slot for the pass. Sidney almost turns, has a foot back to pivot when he hears the familiar slice of a skate from way too close. There's a half-second for Sidney to brace himself, then a bone-jarring impact with the boards as someone slams him to the glass.

Sidney takes it and slips to the ice afterward, legs weak. He can hear whoops from the bench, see a stick sweep in beneath him to try and pry the puck away. That's not going to happen on Sidney's watch, not if he can help it, so he props himself up and whacks at the biscuit as well, trying to send it up the boards to where Getzy should be lurking.

"Just let me have it," Toews growls in his ear.

"Shouldn't have --," Sidney throws an elbow back, tries to box Toews off the puck using his shoulders, "-- hit me like that." They're both talking through their teeth, clenched into the rubber of their mouthguards. "Asshole."

"Pussy." Toews subtly foot-sweeps him, not enough to draw a penalty but enough to send Sidney further off-balance and let Toews smack the puck away. Sidney gives an inarticulate yell of frustration and then barks out a warning to his defensemen, racing back to help ward off an odd-man rush from the red-shirts.

Two minutes later, Toews scrubs him into the boards again. The third time it happens, Sidney delivers a not-so-gentle elbow to the jaw. "The fuck, man?" he grunts, and pushes off the glass, Toews practically riding his back, trying to shove him up again.

"I don't know what you think you saw last night," Toews says against his ear, too quiet for anyone else to hear, "but you _didn't_ , got it?" Sidney struggles, tries to get away, tries to get his stick on the puck. Jonny doesn't give an inch. To the rest of the team it probably just looks like a heated board battle.

"Fine, whatever. Deal with your shit the way you need to. But stop --," Sidney manages to twist, slam Jonny sideways against the boards and make off with the puck. Toews gives chase and Sidney only lets him catch up when they're all the way in the other end, fighting for it behind Marty in the red goal. "Stop taking it out on your teammates." When Toews shoves, Sidney shoves right back. "You could have hurt Boyle back there." It's getting harder and harder to catch his breath. It's been a long shift, a _rough_ shift. "Get your head out of your own ass, and back on this team."

It shocks Toews enough that the steal is suddenly easy, and Sidney whirls out, slams his stick against the post in a wrap-around that flies skyward. There's the familiar moment of soaring hope that accompanies what seems like a sure goal, but then Marty's blocker appears out of thin air and bats the puck down so Marty can turtle over it and stop play.

Babcock blows the whistle for a shift change. "Good hockey, both of you," he says, while they skate in to the bench and try to regain their breath. "Way to dig for it on those boards." Sidney resists the urge to roll his eyes.

*

He wakes that night to the sound of the door closing. The room stays completely dark, curtains and balcony doors closed because unlike previous nights, the temperature is well below freezing. Sidney listens as Toews feels his way across the room, muffled curses when he runs into the side of his bed and a soft thud against the wall when he reaches for his suitcase and overestimates how far away it is. Rustles of clothing, a zipper, more rustling, and finally a sigh when Jonny settles into his own bed, laying on his back. The alarm clock says 1 a.m., four hours later than they usually go to sleep.

Sidney waits until Jonny isn't moving, waits until he's counted to five hundred since the last sound he heard from that side of the room. He lies awake and stares at the ceiling and thinks about Toews. "Why?" he says softly.

There's no response from the other bed, no movement or shift in the sheets to indicate that Jonny heard. He's probably asleep.

"I just --." Sidney startles at Jonny's voice. It's been long enough that he was sure he was the only one awake. "You mean this right?" Jonny pats his side. Sidney nods, then realizes he can't be seen, but Jonny continues anyway. "It was just. Some people get tattoos, you know?" which is enough of a non-sequitur that Sidney frowns and makes a questioning noise low in his throat.

Jonny turns over onto his side, facing. "I do them for special things, stuff I want to remember. Winning Juniors, winning Worlds, first NHL goal, that sort of thing."

"Like some people get tattoos," says Sidney doubtfully.

"Yeah."

"But _why_? Why not just get a tattoo? I mean you --," he pauses, as if saying it might make it real. But it is real, and Sidney wants to understand. "-- You cut yourself, right? To make the scars."

Another long silence. "Yes," says Jonny at last, barely a breath of a word. Sidney listens to the quiet, feels his chest rise and fall beneath the weight of the comforter. Jonny props his head up on his elbow and curls his knees in tighter. "I guess it started in U-17s, that year we won it for Canada. I fell down and got kicked at the boards in one of the early games, got cut along my side. By the time we got to the damn medal game, it was starting to heal, and I kept picking at it because it kept itching, so it was going to scar." Jonny's hand strays unconsciously down to his side, and Sidney imagines him touching the place where he'd first been cut.

"Then when we won it and they gave me MVP, I sort of looked at it and thought it was a shame that I was getting this ugly thing out of the tournament, you know? And the idea just sort of came to me, that I could turn it into a souvenir instead of this ugly cut, make it part of something that would remind me of how good it was, instead of reminding me of getting my ass kicked in that one game. So I figured out how to turn the cut into part of the tournament logo, and I sort of drew it on me." He takes a deep breath. "It didn't take that long to heal, really. It doesn't hurt that much. And now whenever I look at that one, it reminds me of how good that last game felt." A soft, near-bitter laugh. "Besides, it's not like my parents would have let me have tattoos at that age, anyway." Even quieter, "I liked it. So from then on, when something I wanted to remember happened, I made a drawing and --."

Jonny falls silent, drops his head back to the pillow and rolls to lay facing the ceiling again. Sidney stares into the darkness above him and blinks. His mind finishes Jonny's last sentence: _And cut it into himself_.

It almost makes a twisted sort of sense. Some people get ink to etch memories into their skin. Jonny just doesn't bother with the ink. Sidney pushes one hand into his hair, twists it there until it hurts and tries to imagine Jonny drawing on himself with a knife or a razor blade, the way the blade would push into skin, that moment of indentation and white-stretched tension before the actual cut. It must have hurt. Sidney twists the hand in his own hair harder, trying to understand, bites at his tongue and thinks of the taste of blood. Tattoos scab as well, and no one thinks those are weird. It almost makes a twisted sort of sense. Sidney pictures what he'd seen the night before when Jonny had his shirt off, tries to imagine the pale lines that creep eerily across bone and muscle. The way Toews's face must have contorted into strange shapes, trying to remain still enough to get the lines right even as he hurt himself deeply enough to scar.

Sidney sits up in bed and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. He can hear Jonny's swift intake of breath even over the way the sheets rustle at his movement. He can practically smell the tension in the room. He flips on the bedside lamp and watches Jonny throw his arm up to cover his eyes, squinting unprepared. "I want to see," Sidney says.

The arm stays across Jonny's eyes, then slowly falls back to his side. Sidney watches fingers clench in the sheets, release, clinch again until the knuckles pale. "Please," says Sidney.

Jonny turns his head to meet Sidney's eyes. His head is the only thing that moves; the rest of him is almost preternaturally still, near-vibrating with the lack of motion. He doesn't say yes. He doesn't say no.

Sidney stands up like he's pushing his limbs through sand, and Jonny swallows hard enough to make his adam's apple bob. It's a four-foot gap between their beds, but crossing it feels like an eternity when every motion has to be gauged against whether it will push too hard, startle Jonny. Sidney sits down on the very edge of the other bed, perching, and reaches out.

There's an audible catch of breath in Jonny's throat. Sidney tugs the blankets down to bunch up at Jonny's waist, then touches his fingertips to the edge of Jonny's t-shirt. The rise and fall of Jonny's stomach completely stops. He isn't breathing. Sidney barely dares to breathe himself, but Jonny still hasn't said no, is still marble and stone beneath his hands, so Sidney nudges upwards so very slowly, so very lightly, trying not to touch. This is a weird thing to do with a teammate, a weird thing to do with anyone, but somehow after that brief glimpse yesterday he _needs_ to see more, so he swallows down the strangeness and fear and goes ahead.

It seems to take forever to reveal one of the scars in its entirety. Sidney remembers seeing Jonny reach for his side when he talked about the cut that started all this, and there it is, the U-17 logo in ridged lines of puckered skin. Sidney bites his lip, hovers his fingers over it, not quite daring to touch. Jonny's chest heaves and nearly brings them in contact, heavy exhale of the breath he's been holding and inhale of another, this one held too. Sidney nudges the shirt up a little more, still not touching skin. He can see the bottom of the World Junior logo, the one he'd noticed yesterday, and he traces the air above that one too. He can feel the tips of the fine hairs that cover the skin, imagines that he can feel how warm the scars would be if he touched. Jonny's breaths go from held and sporadic to fast and shallow.

"Take it off." Sidney pokes a fingertip at one of the wrinkles of the shirt.

"I," says Jonny, then sits up. Sidney jerks away, still not wanting contact, but Jonny doesn't seem to notice, the shirt wrapped up around his eyes in the process of pulling it off. He lays back down when he's bare-chested, and Sidney can see them all. He recognizes some -- World Juniors on the left ribs; World Championship logo opposite it on the right; captain's C etched life-sized near the heart, where it would sit on the jersey. Sidney hovers his hand above that one, stroking the air just above the C along the curve of the letter, down and back up, over and over, almost meditative. Sidney wonders what it felt like to carve it, whether it took a mirror. Others designs are unfamiliar, and Sidney wonders what they commemorate. It's the C that his eyes keep coming back to, the outline so simple and stark against the smooth muscle there. The lines are neat, almost frighteningly precise.

"Thank you," Sidney says at last, and glances back up at Jonny's face. The lamplight is meager enough to turn his eyes to pure black, eerie. There's an intensity there, as though Sidney is a hockey play that Jonny needs to figure out. Sidney wonders if this is what Hiller felt. Toews nods slowly.

Standing, his thighs stiff from balancing on the very edge of the bed for so long, Sidney reaches to turn out the light. He climbs back into his own bed and after a moment Toews turns onto his side, his back to Sidney again. Sidney closes his eyes and sees those scars against his eyelids: the simple, almost powerful C; the spidery lines of the championship logos. Sidney wonders how much it must have hurt to write his history into his own body.

*

"Twenty! _Twenty_!" Sidney can't tell, doesn't have time to look, but it sounds like Eric Staal's voice from over at the bench. Twenty seconds left on the power play.

Kesler dumps the puck out of the Americans' zone, and Sidney circles back to pick up the play while Keith carries the puck back in. Three and a half minutes left, two goals down, and not converting on this power play is simply not an option. Sidney drifts towards the net.

"Puck," Nash yells and races down toward the boards in the corner, wide open. Keith slaps it almost blindly toward the sound, his skates slicing gashes into the too-soft ice when he pivots. Callahan in the red, white, and blue follows Keith's play and drifts up to threaten the open passing lane back to the point, but it leaves him out of position. In the crowd near the glass, someone has an airhorn. Its insistent wail bleeds into the back of Sidney's consciousness like the goal siren they so desperately need. He slides in between Drury and Orpik, looking for an opening, a path to the goal.

Nash gives an incomprehensible yell from the corner, and shoves the puck out in front of the net. Sidney doesn't even have time to think, barely has time to drop his stick the two inches that it takes to get his tape on the ice. The biscuit hits it, ricochets, and Sidney feels the impact all the way up his forearms. It all happens so fast. He's past the net and turning behind before he realizes that the deflection went in.

The building around them goes nuts.

Iggy and Boyle skid to a stop in front of him, wrap arms around his neck and head while Nash jumps into their pile and whoops in Sidney's ear. The weight of them no longer matters, their sweaty, too-strong smells. He scored, he scored, he scored, and Sidney's face feels like it might crack from the smile. Keith is both last to the huddle and quietest, grinning proudly at Sidney as the PA announces the assists. Finally, some life in the crowd again. They're only one goal down.

Back at the bench, Staal punches him harmlessly in the shoulder pad and scoots over so that Sidney can have a spot. The Jumbotron is showing the goal again, and Sidney beams up at his digital self, watches as it deflects the puck in slow-mo. "First goal by Sid the Kid," Boyle says from behind him and dangles a water bottle in his face. Sidney takes it and blinks to realize that yes, he's actually scored in the Olympics. His whole body feels light with the knowledge, the thought of it sitting quivery and solid in his stomach. 

Thirty seconds have gone by on the ice. The euphoria of the goal dips and stumbles. His first Olympic goal, and they're still behind. "Crosby line out," yells Babcock, and they take the puck from a shift by the Staal line in the Americans' zone. Cycle, cycle, and Doughty lines up a shot from the high slot that's close, _so close_. Miller doesn't clear the rebound. They all slap at it, Sidney taking hits to the skates and shins when someone misses the puck. Finally, Miller gets a blocker on it. The crowd at the boards surges and crests, and it feels for a moment like an extension of himself, as though twenty thousand Canadians are yelling out his rage that somehow they could be so close, so _good_ and not score.

Back to the benches when breathing becomes too much of a trial to concentrate on puck movement. Water, wait. Two minutes left. Out to take a faceoff then back immediately to make room for the Sharks line. Ninety seconds still to go. Another shift, three more impossible saves by Ryan _motherfucking_ Miller and Sidney is so frustrated that he hurls his water bottle against the boards behind the bench. It explodes with the impact and drenches Babcock's feet, but the older man just glances at Sidney like he understands. They're all in this thing together, and if anyone else is carrying a weight even near that on Sidney's shoulders, it's Babcock.

Eric Staal is the one who spots it. "Scotty, _Scotty get back!_ " he screams, and Sidney turns to look. He's heard Eric yell before, but this wasn't like that. This wasn't mere urgency, this was panic and oh Christ, Perry isn't going to make it. Kesler is streaking down the near-side boards and Perry's with him, but he's a half-step back. Scotty doesn't realize what's going on, hasn't backchecked hard enough, and now there's a brief window. Sidney can almost feel it in his own muscles, knows exactly what Kesler's seeing and feeling, the burn of 'stay one step ahead', the insane knowledge that this could be the big one. He's done it himself to countless defenders.

Marty's on the bench to give them the sixth attacker. They have Corey Perry out there instead of Martin Brodeur, and there's a US forward streaking toward their net. Niedermayer won't get back in time.

Sidney knows the shot before Kesler takes it, knows that it will score before it hits the goal.

The crowd goes eerily quiet. Sidney thinks that he might be going into shock, because the only thing he can think of is Star Wars: _as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced_. At the other end of the rink, the Americans are leaping into a pile in a celebration so foreign to Sidney's current mood it almost seems obscene. Kesler's lost his helmet. Forty-four seconds left, and they're down by two again.

They've lost.

*

Sidney hikes his scarf up further to cover his face, standing in line with the rest of the team to get on the bus back to the Olympic Village. It's so quiet outside, and he suspects the hush has less to do with the snow in the air and on the ground, and more to do with the way they didn't win. When they'd come out after previous games, he'd been able to still hear the party going on in the nearby Plaza of Nations, but tonight there is nothing to celebrate. Sidney shivers. It's windy out tonight, frigid.

"Hey coach?"

Babcock turns from his position next to the bus door. "Yeah?"

"We don't have anything official to do after this, do we? I mean, we're off for the night."

Babcock frowns at him. "You're off. But don't do anything stupid. Just go back to the hotel and get some sleep, we've got --"

"Practice tomorrow, and then press. I know." He pauses, looks up at the sky and the falling snowflakes. The tires of the bus are actually steaming, heated from the friction of rolling on the drive over. "If it's okay with you, I'm going to walk back."

A raised eyebrow communicates Babcock's doubt. There's a snowflake caught in the hairs.

"I just need some time to clear my head. It's only a mile, it won't take long. It's not like I'm going to stay out all night."

The coach shrugs. "It's up to you. You've got a cell phone?" Sidney nods. "Call if you need security, we'll send people out."

The rest of the team is bundled onto the bus already, but Marty Brodeur hangs back, shuffling his feet from side to side and scratching the back of his neck. "I'll walk with you, if that's okay."

Sidney shrugs and they watch together as the bus pulls away, steam billowing from its exhaust pipe into the cold. Sidney can see his own breath. He shoves his hands into his pockets and they wait until the bus has turned out onto the boulevard before Marty touches him on the elbow. "Come on."

The walk back to the Village takes them down a wide sidewalk, coated in slush and thin mud where the crowds from the game had trampled the snow. Overhead the sky train rattles by, flash of neon in its futuristic glass tube. Sidney watches it pass, snowflakes falling into his eyes, and when he looks back down Marty is staring.

"What?" His throat feels scratchy.

"I just --. I don't know. Are you okay?" Sidney shrugs. He's not really okay, but Marty will understand. "They kept you in there an awfully long time," Marty says quietly. It isn't stated as a question, but there's a morbid curiosity lurking behind the words.

After the game, the media hadn't wanted to let him leave the green room. Predatory on the best of days, the loss set the reporters out for blood. Marty hadn't lingered at all and hadn't given any interviews. Scotty left early to settle the team down and get them ready for a meeting, so Sidney had been forced to fend for himself. In some ways the post-game interviews had been comforting; mouthing through the familiar platitudes of _worked hard_ , _bad bounces_ , _have to respect opponents_ made the loss feel a little more like any other, and not like he just disappointed thirty million people and betrayed his national pride.

"They were rough on you," says Sidney, in response to the question that isn't being asked.

"I've lost it, haven't I?"

There isn't anything to say to that, so Sidney doesn't answer. He stares straight ahead down the sidewalk at the bundled-up people in front of them, and pulls his scarf up a little further so that it covers his mouth and nestles under his nose. It's not much as disguises go, but maybe it'll be enough. It means that he tastes his breath every time he exhales, warm patch of cloth against his chin that cools quickly until the next time he breathes out. Marty sees and imitates the gesture; hockey players incognito.

They stop at a light to cross the street towards the Science Center, an enormous geodesic sphere in the distance, floating futuristic at the edge of the bay. Marty puts a hand on Sidney's shoulder to keep him from stepping too close to the curb when a car rushes by, slinging mud up toward their shoes. Sidney rubs his red mittens together. Around them other pedestrians gather into a knot to wait for the walk signal, and he hunches his shoulders to try and make himself inconspicuous. The last thing he wants right now is to talk to people and have to try and be polite or upbeat. When the light goes green, Marty walks slowly. Sidney hangs back with him until the others are yards ahead and they are alone. The neon glow of the sphere reflects in the water beside them, huge and pale like a very close moon. Sidney shuffles along by the railing at the edge of the sidewalk and kicks snow over the rim to hear it splash into the bay.

They pass the sphere and are within sight of the Village when Marty says, "It'll be good for us, maybe. The extra game will give us a chance to practice more, work some of the kinks out." Babcock had said as much at the team meeting, in almost those exact words.

"You don't believe that."

A pause, and all of Vancouver is so muffled in the snow, so low and hungry and silent. "No." Their shoes crunch in the powder.

"We'll do this," says Sidney at last, because it feels like he _should_ say something, anything.

"Yeah," says Marty, and Sidney doesn't ask if he believes that one either. He doesn't want to know.

The cold feels too familiar; he shudders at the warmth when he steps into the checkpoint to show the guards his badge.

*

"Kaner says hi." Toews looks up from where he's sitting crosslegged with his laptop when Sidney opens the door to their room.

"That little shit. Just had to rub it in, didn't he."

"I don't think it's like that. He almost seems upset," says Jonny, and frowns. "Well, not upset, he's happy they won, but --."

"He feels bad about making you unhappy?"

"Something like that."

Sidney nods and goes to brush his teeth. When he gets out of the bathroom, Jonny is still typing. Sidney lays down in his bed and lets his head roll back, closes his eyes. Hard hockey is always exhausting, even if you win. Losing is worse and his body is weary, but his brain feels like it's been overclocked on adrenaline for so long it can't slow down. He doesn't want to go out; that would involve seeing people. The TV remote is on the stand, but he doesn't want to risk the chance of spotting a scrolling ribbon or worse, a news channel that's covering the aftermath of the game. Jonny's brave to be on the internet; Sidney is determined to avoid all media until the sting has a chance to die down, if it ever dies down. A thought occurs to Sidney and he opens his eyes again. "Hey, does Kane know about --," he waves his hand in Jonny's direction.

"What?"

"Your --. The --. " Sidney waves his hand more emphatically, willing Jonny to understand his semaphore.

"You mean the scars?" Toews looks curiously down at his shirt and touches the Blackhawks logo as though he can see the shapes through it. Sidney nods. "Yeah, he knows. I mean, we've roomed together for years now. Not much he doesn't know."

"Do the rest of the Hawks?"

"Yeah." Jonny's fingers hover above the keyboard, then after a final flurry of typing he closes the laptop and angles himself to face Sidney more fully. His hands are open and relaxed on his knees. "Most of them know," Jonny says. "Seabs and Duncs. I don't bother to hide it at home. I just didn't want to be the freak right off the bat with the other guys for Canada. I mean, I wanted to actually set foot on the ice, and no way was I going to make the team if the coaches or Neids saw these and thought I was a headcase. Just seemed easier not to make a big deal."

"Makes sense, I guess."

There's a long pause, and Jonny seems expectant. When Sidney says nothing else, he sighs and straightens his arms, stretches. "Ready for bed?"

Sidney nods. Jonny turns out the light, then goes in the bathroom and Sidney can hear the sounds of teeth-brushing taking place.

The darkness of the ceiling reminds him of the silent, dejected arena. One of Sidney's calves feels tense with little spasms, as though it's not ready to be restful yet. The loss still rides under his skin like an itch that no scratching could even begin to touch. He rubs his feet together under the comforter and listens to the sounds of water running from the bathroom. There's a thick sliver of light from the doorway into the room; Jonny hasn't closed it completely.

Exhausted and off-center, Sidney kicks off the blankets and goes to the bathroom door. He can see through the few inches of opening that Toews is washing his face.

He pushes the door open a foot or so more and squeezes inside. Toews sees him enter in the mirror and whirls, face and hair dripping wet, clutching a hand towel in one fist. "Sidney, what the hell?" he says, and Sidney shakes his head because there is no answer to that question. He doesn't know what the hell either, only that Jonny is team and he can't sleep. There are water drops sliding down Jonny's cheek, caught in the fine stubble of hair above his mouth. They catch the light when he speaks.

"No really, what the hell," Jonny tries again. When Sidney still doesn't say anything, Jonny gives a growl of frustration and rolls his eyes, turning back to face the mirror and burying his face in the towel so that he's no longer dripping all over the tile. Sidney steps closer and Jonny keeps an eye on him in the glass while he dries off his bangs, until Sidney is standing behind him and watching over his shoulder in the mirror.

A hand halts him when Jonny tries to turn around, keeps him facing their reflections. Both their eyes track Sidney's fingers as they lift at the sides of Toews's shirt, pull it up enough that Jonny understands what he wants. In the air around them, indecision sings through the moment as Jonny takes hold of the shirt hem. Sidney wonders if he'll pull it back down, but after a twitch of motion tugging toward his waist, Jonny seems to change his mind and instead jerks the shirt off over his head, stretching the neck out even more than its current pitiful state. It lands on top of the towel and Jonny stands bare-chested in front of him, so that Sidney can see the scars in the mirror. Jonny had said they were symbols of triumph, moments when he'd done well.

Sidney starts with a familiar one: a skater imposed on a maple leaf, based on the Canadian World Championship medals. They'd beaten the world in that tournament. He hadn't touched the scars before, but in the mirror depth perception is odd and off-kilter, so it's more by accident than by design that he pushes his fingers hard into Toews's ribs. Some of the lines are barely perceptible to his sense of feel; if his eyes weren't glued to the image they make in the mirror, he probably wouldn't be able to follow them by touch alone. Jonny makes a low unhappy noise, but Sidney ignores him.

He's careful, slow, tracing each line of the image meditatively. Sidney imagines that he was there when they won the championship, that his fingertips are the blades that made these, pushing harder on the wide lines and touching lightly in the spider-web thin details. "How long did this take?" He can't explain his need to know more, know everything about how Toews did this to himself.

"About a month." Jonny's voice is shallow and thin, as though he's afraid to let his ribs expand enough to give him real air. "Complex ones like that you can't do all at once."

"Some people get tattoos," Sidney says, and when Jonny laughs his ribs do move, and Sidney's fingers ride the motion, settle back into the hollow just under his lowest rib when the laughter subsides. Somehow it's more comfortable to touch after hearing Jonny laugh. When he finishes the World Championship, he moves his hand toward the other side, the World Juniors design, and realizes too late what that means. He's right-handed, and touching toward the left of Jonny's chest puts his arm loose around Toews, pulls him close enough that if Toews leans back the slightest fraction, they'll be resting against each other. Sidney doesn't know if he wants that or not, whether contact might ease the gnawing of the loss in his stomach or make it worse. He isn't sure how to interpret the fact that his skin tingles when Jonny sways minutely and just barely brushes shoulderblades against Sidney's chest. He can hear it stutter in Jonny's breath too.

"All these were for Canada," Sidney says, mostly because he needs to say _something_ to distract himself from the fact that he just realized he can feel Jonny's heartbeat.

"Yes." Deep breath. "Well, some are Blackhawks, but all those," and Jonny's hand comes up to guide where Sidney moves, pointing out the scars for international play.

"All those for Canada." A bitter grin. "See, we are good at hockey."

Jonny's eyes in the mirror are dark and arresting. Sidney focuses there and sees only in peripheral vision that Jonny is touching the World Championship design again, fingering the scar like a talisman. "We are good," Jonny says, and Sidney holds his gaze long enough for Jonny to see he understands.

"What's this one?" Sidney taps his thumb over a smaller design on Jonny's stomach, down near the left hipbone. Jonny laughs again.

"A buffalo. Manitoba gave me the Order of the Buffalo." Now that Jonny has explained, he can see it. The design is primitive, like something he might see in a cave painting, but it's unmistakably a buffalo. "I got the linework from an Inuit tattoo." The simple lines give it a certain power, so Sidney nods and lets his thumb linger a little more.

Jonny shivers and leans back. Sidney jerks with surprise and knows from the tensing then relaxing of the stomach under his thumb that Jonny felt his startlement against the full length of his spine. They're pressed flush, and Sidney never thought he'd know so intimately that Jonny's shoulders are still damp from the hasty toweling. Or maybe Jonny's sweating. Or maybe it's just him. Nothing in Sidney's experience so far has prepared him for the etiquette of this particular situation. Jonny still seems relaxed though, leaning back and letting Sidney take his weight, and after a moment curiosity overcomes trepidation. Jonny is a living medallion of the fact that tonight's loss doesn't have to be the end of Sidney's dreams.

"This one?"

"WCHA Champs."

"This one?"

"NHL --,"

"-- All-Stars," Sidney finishes with him, and Jonny nods.

He touches each design, and Jonny volunteers the occasion. Sometimes Sidney asks how long it took, if it hurt, which line was the original skate slash that started everything. The captain's C he saves for last. Maybe Sidney is projecting, but that one feels the most intimate.

"This one?" He starts at the top of the C, traces slowly. Jonny had been relaxed, but his breath goes rapidly shallow against Sidney's chest, and he swallows.

"You know that one," he says when Sidney has traced the letter all the way around his nipple.

"I do know that one." Sidney traces it again, concentrating less on the letter and more on the fine trembles that it draws when he rubs his fingers there. He's halfway through a third time when Jonny's hand comes up to cover his own and hold him still.

"We should go to bed," says Jonny thickly. Tomorrow they have to explain to a nation that they still can be better.

"Yeah," Sidney agrees, and flattens his hand over the place where Jonny's heartbeat is strongest. The breath explodes out of him in a soft _whoof_ , and Sidney knows the feeling. Just being able to watch Jonny like this in the mirror feels terribly illicit. Touching is a whole other level of forbidden and fucked up and fantastic.

"Please," breathes Jonny. Sidney watches his mouth move in the mirror and isn't sure what he's asking, whether he wants more or for it all to stop. Sidney himself isn't sure whether to push or run screaming. They do need to go to bed.

He ducks his head and brushes his nose against the juncture of Jonny's neck and ear, gathers in the tiny _ah_ sound it draws and the way Jonny bends his head for more. He smells like soap there and a little like sweat still. "Okay," Sidney says, and steps back enough to put air between them, shivering when his chest instantly feels cold. "Bed."

Jonny turns out the light in the bathroom and Sidney finds his pillow by groping in the dark. He's glad of the dimness; if he had to face Jonny now, after _that_ , whatever it was, he's not sure what he'd say. Sidney sighs deeply and closes his eyes. One thing about being confused about Jonny: the loss no longer stings with quite the same biting ferocity. Maybe the scars are good for something after all, but what that something might be, Sidney has no idea.

*

"I'm not going to tell you that this is going to be just like any other practice, gentleman, because it's not." Babcock is pacing. Sidney leans back against his stall in the players' lounge and tracks the coach's progress with his eyes: eight steps in one direction, pivot, eight steps in the other. In the center of the bench, nearest to the maple leaf logo on the floor, Marty and Lu are both leaning forward, jaws twin hard lines of goalie apprehension. Eric Staal is pretending to wrap his sticks, but he isn't looking at the tape at all, and Sidney knows that he'll have to redo the work later if he wants any of the sticks to actually be useable. Marleau is playing with the tennis ball again, squeezing it hard enough that every so often it spurts out of his hand and bounces toward the floor. Thornton usually retrieves it for him when this happens, hands the ball back over and settles down to wait again. The whole room smells of stale sweat and shaving cream, aftershave.

Babcock pivots once more, then raises his head and points. "Lu, you're in tomorrow." Both goalies react identically; shoulders slump and heads go down into hands. The team as a whole holds its breath -- Marleau stops playing with the ball, Staal sets his tape down in his lap. Surprisingly it's Marty who recovers first, straightening his spine and looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with anyone in the room. He reaches over and pats Lu on the back, two heavy thumps that resonate loud since none of the rest of them are talking, and Lu glances up at him, surprised. A moment for something to pass between them, Sidney doesn't pretend to know what, and Lu nods, first to Marty then to Babcock.

The relief through the rest of the room is palpable.

"Expect new line combinations too. Nothing's set in stone this morning, but we're going to try some things. This afternoon we'll go with the looks we liked from this morning, and you can expect those to be the lines for tomorrow's game. Video's going to be tonight after supper, I've booked one of the projector rooms in Canada House." Nods from around the room, no surprises about the schedule. "All right, coaches have the lines we'll start with, so let's get out there and warm up." A pause, but no one moves. The line of Babcock's shoulder says there's something more to come. He faces the team. "We fucked up last night. We let the whole fucking country down, but starting today, we're going to fix it."

With that they head out onto the ice in a silent, glum line to group up by the color of their practice uniform. Sidney is in white today, along with Staal, Iginla, Niedermayer, and Weber. They settle along the paint of one of the faceoff circles and crouch to the ice, extending first one leg then the other, stretching and getting a feel for the surface. It's slushy today, and has been getting worse with every game since the Olympics began. By the time the medal rounds take place, they'll be skating in water with some ice cubes floating in it.

Wind sprints, shooting drills, passing drills, screen drills. Sidney skates with an angry Nash and Morrow; with Toews and Staal, who both seem focused and philosophical; with Marleau and Heatley in a line where he doesn't fit because he isn't Thornton. Sometimes Babcock lines up three centers in a drill just for the hell of it, and Sidney can't see the method to the madness at all, but he's trusting that the coach has a plan. He's back with Staal and Iginla and they've just come in to the boards from a neutral ice transition drill, breathless and frustrated because it isn't working, none of it's working today, when he notices Yzerman on the end of the bench, perched in the backup goalie's seat. Sidney glides to that end, settles himself near a rack of water bottles, and pops out his mouthpiece to chew on one end.

"How do you feel?" says Yzerman.

"Tired." It sounds abrupt, but at the moment he's too weary for politeness. Yzerman grunts and nods, watches as Toews and Morrow stave off offensive zone pressure from the Sharks line and Toews clears the puck back down past where they sit. "Point!" Babcock screams, "Get your ass up to the goddamn point, Weber, we don't have time for this shit."

"What does it sound like?" Yzerman asks at last, and Sidney looks over to study his face. He's wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, watching the play on the ice with more attention than it probably deserves. His eyes have more lines around them than Sidney remembers from photographs, and Sidney wonders briefly if the Games are taking as large a toll on Yzerman as they are on the actual players for the team.

"What does what sound like?"

"The arena. Right now." This time Sidney really does stare at him. Surely there's a point to this conversation. Out on the ice, Keith is yelling to Doughty about a new plan for near-side faceoffs and Marty is baiting Weber about his slapshot skills.

"Um, like a hockey team practicing?"

"Empty."

"Yeah, I guess." There are twenty thousand seats around them, and Sidney knows what he means. Even if they don't make noise, there's a weight to the emptiness that he can sense, and the enormous space distorts even the noise from the ice, swallows it up into the void. It's different from the practice rinks he's used to -- small with close walls and only a few bleachers -- and the strange absence of noise makes Sidney feel smaller in the arena than he ever does on game day when it's full of people.

"Think about it tomorrow when you come out of that tunnel. They say you can hear when Canada takes the ice from all the way across the bay in the Village."

"Uh. Okay."

Stevie sighs and props his feet up on the boards. "Don't think about the games you've already played. Don't let yourself dwell on what you should have done differently with America. You've got the rest of your life to make stupid plays in games you'll lose, there's nothing special about that. That kind of noise, though, that energy, that's once in a lifetime."

Iginla reaches behind them and pokes Yzerman with his stick. "You're getting sentimental in your old age, Stevie."

Steve throws his head back and laughs, and Sidney wonders what it must have been like to play for the man. Even now, years away from when he'd worn the C and lifted the Cup, there's something magnetic about him, a sense that he could take the ice this very moment and be the difference-maker for the team, the one who turned them around. "Yeah, well, now I'm old enough that all the young ones have to listen to me." He slants a grin sideways at Sidney. "One of these days I'll come down here and spout complete bullshit just to fuck with you guys. Say that you should tape your stick to the left if it's raining or some such nonsense."

Sidney tracks the path of the puck as it ricochets off Doughty's shinguard for a turnover. "You've ruined your plan, now that we're warned."

"Yeah, well --," Stevie begins, but is interrupted.

"Crosby line, offensive zone faceoff." Babcock makes a note on his clipboard. Sidney vaults out and heads for the dot.

It's Thornton across from him, and Sidney focuses on Lemaire's forearm to try and get a jump on his movement for when he'll drop the puck. For a split second of waiting, the entire arena is silent, no one moving on the ice. It's like standing in the middle of a yawning hole and holding his breath, waiting for the space to fill with energy. He's never noticed it before.


	3. Chapter 3

Seabrook seems to think its his duty as seventh defender to stand by the glove-drying machine and cheer them on as they head for the ice. Sidney taps his stick twice against the locker room door as he exits and listens to the constant patter of, "Gonna be a great game, Lu. Leprechaun, there, Dunky," -- Sidney shrugs to himself, must be an inside joke -- "Go get 'er, Neids. Come on, Webs." When Toews passes, there's no encouraging quip, just a fist-bump, then after a millisecond's pause, Seabrook leans forward and taps his helmet against Jonny's. The rest of them notice because it causes a brief hitch in the line. Jonny pats his teammate twice on the back of the head -- hollow, comforting raps against the plastic -- then continues down the tunnel toward the ice. "Take care of him, Mikey," Seabrook says to Mike Richards, who is next in line, and Richards nods as he passes. "Atta boy, Patty. Come on, Donut, hard shifts all the way." Sidney gets a rough smack to the back of the helmet and a, "Give 'em hell, Kiddo," as he passes by, trailing Nash out onto the ice.

Three steps from the doorway is when he first begins to hear it, a rumble so deep in the stands that it's not caused by the deafening noise, but simply by the motion of so many feet standing and jumping that the very concrete of the building itself seems to scream for them. "-- Your team --" blasts the voice over the Jumbotron, but the "Canada!" at the end of the sentence is inaudible, drowned out by the noise of yelling and stomping and cheers. There's a giant Luongo-head cutout on the other side of the arena in the front row, at least six feet tall. Sidney can smell nachos, pizza, beer spilled already, even over the clean tang of ice and the funk of hockey equipment and sweat. The crowd behind the glass moves like a single living thing, something faceless and enormous whose noise might be menacing if he wasn't so sure that it was all for them. It's impossible to pick out individuals among the crowd, but he can feel the ice itself quivering, slushy as it is beneath his blades, in an echo of the motion all around him.

The team circles in their own zone and Sidney watches Lu shuffle through the business of roughing up his crease. A chorus of "Lu!" fills the air when he holds up a stick to acknowledge the fans. They line up opposite the German team for the usual salute then peel off and head for the bench, preliminaries done, fun stuff over. Now they have to earn the cheers. Sidney closes his eyes and fingers the ridges of the tape on his blade. The smells, the noise, the pounding hands on the glass behind him, the vibrations in the plastic bench from where the whole stadium is vibrating around them -- he imagines it all as electricity running to his bones. He will be electric tonight. They'll be fine.

"Kid," Babcock says, and Sidney stands to vault the boards, but it wasn't a call for his line. "Get your head in the game." Sidney sits back down.

For the first time since the Games began, he doesn't take the opening faceoff. It's Getzy out there opposite Germany's number one center, Goc, and the starting whistle sounds tinny and foriegn to Sidney's ears from the bench. He glances to his right and watches Marty flinch at the crack of the first time the puck hits the glass. Marty's all decked out in a pristine jersey and red Canada baseball cap, his mask nowhere in sight and his face a stony rictus of impassivity. Sidney reaches behind the bench and stretches over Iggy's back to tap Marty's knee with his stick. Marty glances at him, blinks, and doesn't smile. The puck ricochets off a Weber slapshot and caroms all the way down to Canada's end, where Roberto steps out to field it routinely, a chorus of "Lu!" again in his wake. Marty turns away to where McGuire is saying something between the benches, and Sidney exhales at the way he holds himself; too much pride to let the cameras see him cringe.

"Kid," yells Babcock again, and this time it is for their line so he follows Iggy and Eric onto the sheet, toward the far faceoff dot where the Germans await.

The puck comes off his stick to a roar from the crowd at the nearby boards -- tremors in the glass, tremors in the ice and he finds himself moving his feet with the rhythm of the pounding. His pass goes back to Keith then forward towards the boards behind the German net, and Sidney races in harder than he needs to just so that he can feel the shiver of energy all up his right side when he makes contact with the glass, bouncing off to chase down the dump. Stride, stride, breathe, stride, and it's there: not a large opening but an opening nonetheless, so he splays his feet in an eagle turn and whips around the side of the goal, coaxing the puck along, hoping he's fast enough.

It doesn't happen, the wrap-around fails, and it's another heart-out-of-chest thirty seconds of up and down the ice before he can make it back to the bench, panting and gasping for water. "Don't force it," yells Niedermayer at him over the heads of the rest of the team. "Don't get fancy." It's the motto they heard so much in practice yesterday, but when he's out there on the ice, wind against his face from the speed of his blades and nothing but adrenaline throbbing tempo behind his eyes, it's not so easy to remember.

Around them, the air of fifteen thousand shouted out breaths from the crowd presses in like a sauna to the huddled down trenches of the bench, invisible weight that dries their throats and buzzes in their ears. From his seat beside Sidney, Iggy glances up into the stands behind them, then back out on the ice. "Weak side, weak side, Donut," Sidney shouts to a passing Doughty, following the play and watching as Drew wheels to catch the German winger sailing down on his left. Two handy pokes and the puck is back where it belongs, headed towards Griess in the German net, odd-man rush prevented. Drew takes a second to tap his stick on the ice, acknowledgment and thanks for the heads-up, before he's past the bench again and the game whirls on.

And on.

Five minutes, six minutes in, and they still haven't scored. The crowd is quieter, but the lack of noise doesn't make the weight feel any lighter. Sidney's lungs feel too small, like he can't get enough oxygen into his body. They're still carrying this arena on their backs. Shift after shift, Sidney reminds himself to do the simple things; watch the basics and the goals will come, don't make the fancy play when he can make the sure play. "Sid- _aah_ ," Eric yells from beside the German net, voice sliding higher and pained on the end. He's bleeding. Some dark, aggressive animal smiles inside Sidney's chest when he lifts a hand to Eric's eyebrow to check that he's okay, nudging him back toward the bench. Blood means power play. An extra man means goals. The crowd agrees with him, suddenly on its feet and deafening again.

They don't score.

Eight minutes, nine minutes in, and when finally _finally_ Thornton shoves a puck against the twine behind Griess at the tail end of a dirty grinding shift by the Sharks line, it feels like the air has been sucked out of Sidney's bloodstream, leaving him lightheaded.

It's like the relief on an airplane ride when he first pops his ears and the entire world around him seems just a tiny crack clearer. They scored first, they're winning again. In spite of everything, they are good at this game.

"Kid," mouths Babcock, tapping him on the shoulder. Bending over beside the ref, fingers once more loose around the end of his stick, waiting for the puck to drop for the faceoff, it feels like the first time Sidney has inhaled in three days.

*

The sweat dries in his hair during the press conference after. Yes, he's happy that they did so well, even after that interminable ten minutes to start the game. Yes, they're still very aware that all of Canada is watching them, but they're focusing on just the next game, trying to stay calm. Of course Lu was great, they're very pleased. It's always the same questions, asked in eight different versions, and Sidney gives the same answers, over and over until he knows the pattern by rote.

Iggy and Neids are both gone by the time he gets to the showers, but Marty is still there waiting for him on the benches in street clothes, shifting his stick from one hand to the other, its pristine tape unscarred by puck streaks. They walk back together in the freezing, still night, scarves pulled up to trap their breaths in front of their mouths in the barest pretext of disguise. The sphere of the Science Center shines like a great white moon above the quiet water of the bay.

When he opens the door to the room, Toews is lying shirtless on the bed, his laptop balanced on his stomach, rising and falling with his breath. Sidney jerks the knob of the door closed behind himself, fingers clinching so that Marty cannot see the scars from the hallway. "Done?" says Jonny, raising his eyes from the screen, and Sidney nods. His bag slides off his shoulder and lands in a heap by the door. He kicks it with one toe until it sits beside the twin heap of Toews's bag to wait for practice tomorrow.

"Kaner says hi again." Pause. Sidney wonders if they text each other after every game, and feels suddenly and grudgingly jealous of that sort of bond. "I already took a shower, if you want the bathroom," says Jonny. Sidney reaches up and fumbles at his tie, fingers thick with the cold and with relief setting in. The wind from the open balcony door stirs the curtains. Outside, a celebration is still going on in the plaza with the giant outdoor screens, audible from a block away and four stories up. Sidney rolls his shoulders free of the dress shirt and crosses to the closet to hang it up. He really should send it out with the laundry in the morning. Sidney tugs his white undershirt off and steps to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

When he comes back out, mouth fuzzy with the taste of peppermint, the crowd outside is cheering on the replay of the Thornton goal. Toews types away, wrapped up in his own world, and his scars look terribly blatant, terribly obvious and strange in the center of the bed. Sidney crosses to the balcony, looks down and watches people pass by on the sidewalks beneath. The air feels novel, like it stretches his lungs in interesting ways, and he's played for the Stanley Cup, thought he'd understood pressure, but even that was nothing to this. There are thirty million people out there with their hopes pinned to him, to their team. Sidney closes the curtain behind himself when he turns back to the room, but leaves the door open so that the sound still drifts in.

Toews isn't paying attention to him, and it gives Sidney a chance to study the casual line of his pose. There are things he wants desperately to know, but somehow he can't bring himself to ask the questions if he has to face Jonny's eyes, the wide-open earnestness that Jonny tends to bring to conversation. Sidney wants to be able to think without having to guard his expression, without Jonny thinking that he's judging.

"Turn over," he says. Jonny looks up, distracted.

"What?"

"Turn over." It takes a beat before Jonny frowns at him, but then he folds his legs under himself so that he's kneeling on the bed and reaches down to where he's dropped the ubiquitous t-shirt half under the nightstand, picking it up and locating the bottom hem with fast, efficient movements. Sidney stares at him in incomprehension until he realizes that the request might have sounded like rejection or like he didn't want to see the scars. Sometimes he can be a little dense.

"No," he says, stepping across to get closer and Jonny freezes with the shirt halfway over his head. "I didn't mean it like that." He puts out a hand and lays it on the tangled fabric above Jonny's head, suddenly unsure. Jonny slowly raises the shirt again and drops it back to the floor as Sidney takes his hand away. There are questions in Jonny's dark eyes that Sidney doesn't know how to answer and he bites his lip, refusing to let himself squirm under that focus. This is why he didn't want to do this face to face.

"Lay down," Sidney says, and there's another long pause, searching looks that Sidney tries hard not to evade, before Jonny obeys and stretches out on his stomach. He's not even completely settled before Sidney has seated himself on the edge of the bed, and the motion seems to relax Toews at least a little.

Jonny's back is unblemished and smooth but for three scattered moles, the skin shockingly plain after Sidney has become accustomed to the scars across his chest. Sidney makes his hand as wide as he can, splays his fingers until he can see the webbing and hovers them over the depression of Jonny's spine, trying to work out how much of Jonny's back he could span if he touched there. It's avoidance and he knows it, but there are questions that he can't quite find the words to ask. Jonny loops both arms under the pillow and settles his head there, seemingly patient.

"How did Kaner find out?"

Jonny shifts a knee to the side, curves his body a little until he can see Sidney before he answers. Sidney wets his lips, then lets his hand fall, steadying in the small of Jonny's back. Jonny jerks but then relaxes again. "He left his toothbrush in the bathroom, came in when I was shaving."

"What did he do?" A part of Sidney wants to know if he's getting this right, if this is how he _should_ react.

Humorless chuckles from Jonny quiver the skin beneath his hand. Sidney moves, strokes twice down the lower half of Jonny's spine. It's what his mother used to do when he was sick, or when he'd just had nightmares. It's not something he's done before with a teammate, but Jonny curls closer to Sidney's seat on the bed and fluffs the pillow under his face. "He sort of bugged out. We didn't talk for a couple of days. Lost a game. Then we sort of yelled at each other, then it was okay. He's really cool with it, now, says he wants to see the one I do for the Olympics afterwards. He was the one who suggested where I should put the C." It seems like such a private thing, to suggest that someone else cut themselves in a specific way, but even from the East coast and the Pens, Sidney knows that Kaner and Jonny are close.

"What about the rest of the Hawks?"

"I talked to Duncs about it, and Maddog, but none of the others. They've never asked. I sort of think Kaner told some of them, you know how it goes." Can't keep a secret in the locker room of an NHL team. Sidney does know how it goes. "They've never acted like they care." Sidney strokes his back again, then lets his hand roam aimlessly, pressure into the muscles of shoulders and up to his neck. It's nothing that either of them doesn't get done every day by the team masseuses; it's normal. Jonny's eyes drift closed and Sidney wonders at how unexpectedly soft his skin is.

"So you are gonna do one for the Olympics?"

"Yeah. Why not?" His voice goes quiet and he speaks into the pillow, so that Sidney has to lean over to hear him above the drumming din from outside. "Doesn't get much more special than this." Sidney is quiet, just touching, still leaning close in case Jonny says something else. "What about you?" Jonny turns over to look up at him, and Sidney is leaning so close to hear that Jonny's shoulderblade catches hard him in the nose. His hand flies up to cover the injury to his face, and Jonny does a stomach curl to sit up, reaching out to touch with concern. "Fuck, are you alright? I'm sorry."

Sidney takes stock of the state of his face and nods. He's okay, just a little sore. It should pass quickly. "What about me what?" he asks, remembering Jonny's question from before.

"What's Sidney Crosby's big secret?"

Sidney blinks twice and can't think of a thing to say. It's not that he wouldn't trust Jonny, because he understands what's going on here. Jonny is trusting him in a big way, and it makes sense to want something in return, something to hold against betrayal, but when Sidney tries to think of a secret his mind just blanks. Jonny takes pity on him and pulls his wrist up until Sidney's hand settles over the C carved in thick lines against his heart. He can feel the beat below, tense but steady. "No one's casting stones," says Jonny, which strikes Sidney as a particularly Episcopalian way of thinking. "You know I _can't_ judge. What's the one thing you least want to tell me right now?"

Asking for Sidney's mind to suddenly produce a big secret is difficult, but the question of what he least wants to tell Jonny in that instant is easy. The answer flashes lightning bright to his mind, natural as next inhale. It's just the actual telling that will be difficult, the avoiding misunderstandings part. And yet. Toews has given him a whole lot of slack when it comes to touches and questions and prying, so Sidney's sense of fair play feels obligated.

"Don't freak out," Sidney says, maybe too quiet to be heard over the sound of the crowd cheering outside to the score of their latest game. He reaches for Jonny's wrist, guiding his hand to the crotch of Sidney's sleep pants, where the touch feels foreign and devastating. Not even the Pens know this. He's not hard, not at the moment, but he's at least 3/4 of the way there, just from idle touches against Jonny's back, chest. Just from talking.

Jonny doesn't move, statue still because if he did anything else Sidney is pretty sure they wouldn't speak to each other for the next few days. He can feel the cold wind through the curtains, see the goosebumps on Jonny's chest around those fascinating scars, feel the fever-pitch heat of Jonny's hand still covering him, not pulling away. Not quite repulsed, not quite what Sidney expected at all. He's never felt so at-sea in his life, as though his entire world has taken a giant step away into the uniquely bizarre. He's at the center of the most important international tournament of the decade; he's an alt captain and the face of his team; he's rooming with someone who slices his history and his triumphs into his own skin; and his cock is thick and getting harder still under that roommate's touch. He's admitted this, there's no taking it back. Outside, people are still cheering them on in a game they've already won, but in here Sidney feels sick and dizzy all at once, as though his stomach has decided that maybe he should be dry-heaving but his brain isn't yet willing to go along with that plan. He doesn't know what to do.

Luckily, Jonny seems to have an idea. He tugs gently to take his wrist back, and Sidney's stomach signals that he should be running for the bathroom now if he doesn't want to puke all over the carpet. But when Sidney releases the grip on his wrist, Jonny doesn't try to get away, doesn't hit him or kick him, doesn't frown. Instead he sits up and moves the hand that had been covering Sidney's cock to the nape of his neck, tangling fingers in curly hair, tugging.

"Come here," Jonny says, and pulls Sidney with him to lie down. It takes a few minutes of agonizing tenseness, of Jonny not relaxing his grip on Sidney's neck, of Sidney's nose brushing against that C and feathering the hairs around Jonny's nipple with every breath, of neither of them giving ground. But when the crowd outside goes quieter and he realizes that he can feel Jonny's heartbeat beneath his cheek, Sidney relaxes and rearranges himself until they're sharing a bed. He's still half-hard against Jonny's leg, but Jonny doesn't seem to mind so much, and the hand that had been holding the vice grip on his neck shifts to settle lower, stroking along his spine.

Sidney lets himself exhale, and they fall asleep like that: close, both of them on top of the covers, shivering in gooseflesh from the occasional cold wind that makes its way past the curtains through the door.

*

"Hide me," Rick Nash says, elbowing between Toews and Keith to plant himself behind Sidney in the cafeteria line. They're waiting for pasta; after a long practice earlier in the morning and with another, shorter skate scheduled for the afternoon, with the all-important Russia game tonight, Sidney is in the mood for carbs. Jonny seems to be in the mood for laughing; he, Keith, and Seabrook haven't stopped cracking jokes and playing stupid pranks since the dressing room this morning.

It hadn't been as awkward as Sidney had feared, before that. He'd woken first still wrapped up against Jonny's body and had traced the U-17 scar, the one that started it all. Jonny breathed in and out, and after a long time had said, "We do need to get to practice eventually," which was a cue for showers and dress clothes as normal, shared personal space while shaving and Jonny's hand in the small of his back as he reached for the doorknob the only nods to the previous night's intimacy.

The space around them is airy with windows, crammed with people speaking in a dozen different languages. Sidney can understand English and French, and he can identify Russian, but there are others that might be Swedish or Dutch or Chinese or Angoran.

"Okay," Sidney says, craning his neck around to see. "What am I hiding you from?" It's impossible to find details in the throng.

"The speed skaters." Nash hunches his shoulders and seems to be trying to make himself as small as possible, no mean feat for someone of his size.

"The speed skaters?" says Keith, pinging a spoon incessantly against his thumbnail. Seabrook snatches it out of his hand, and the two exchange glances, then Keith shoves his hand into the pocket of his hoodie.

"They keep asking for autographs. It's like they're stalking me. I swear, one of these days I'm going to step out of the shower and there's going to be a speed skater with a marker standing there by the towels." Nash shudders.

"Don't you think you're a little paranoid?" Sidney asks, gathering his own handful of silverware and bending one of the prongs on his fork straighter so that it lines up with the others.

"They're out to get me."

"Well, I hate to tell you this, but you're bigger than I am. They can still see you." It should be impossible to pick Nash out anyway with all the people around, like looking for Waldo in a picture book, camouflage by frenetic numbers.

Nash beams at him. "Doesn't matter. Even if they do see me, nobody's going to care when I'm standing next to the Kid." He has a point.

Sidney scowls at him and is about to turn back around toward the line when a small man in a Korean windbreaker wedges in front of him. "Can you sign my jacket?" The man brandishes a marker and pats a spot on his back near his shoulder. Sidney blinks at him.

"Are you a speed skater?" Toews asks, curious, as the man turns around and Sidney scrawls a signature across the nylon of the jacket. There are several other names there, too. He recognizes Iggy's swooping 'J', and the loopy 't's of Brodeur's signature.

"Short track," says the man as Sidney passes the marker back to him, and Nash raises his eyebrows in Sidney's direction, vindicated. "Thank you," the man says, and they all stare at him as he walks away, disappearing into the crush of people near the pizza station.

"Told you," says Nash.

It happens again three times before they can get to their table, where Perry is saving their seats. Sidney tries to juggle his plate of mushroom ravioli in one hand and a marker in the other for a girl who answers Keith's question about her sport with, "5000-meter long-track."

"Speed skating." She doesn't seem to notice how dumbfounded Keith sounds when he says it, and simply nods.

"And you thought I was paranoid," Nash says as the whole table stares at her retreating back. Sidney frowns and purses his lips thoughtfully.

After lunch, he walks back to his room alone, the others having gone ahead to investigate rumors of free massages. The weather is warmer than last night's frigid air, the snow melting and running in little rivers through the cracks on the sidewalk and in the brick lanes. The giant screen in the plaza is showing cross country, and Sidney pauses long enough at the back of the gathered crowd to watch Norway take a medal in the sprints. A knot of Norwegians at the very front, just below the screen, throw up their arms in celebration, their whoops echoing off the sides of the surrounding buildings to sound magnified, enormous. The rest of the crowd cheers with them, even non-Norwegians reveling in the victory and in their joy of it, and Sidney imagines what it will be a week from now, what the echoes will sound like if the shouts are for him. He's turning away and down the sidewalk toward Canada House when a man walking toward him stops and does a double-take. "You're Sidney Crosby, right?" the man says. Sidney nods. "I'm Sven Kramer. Could you sign my jacket?"

Sidney thinks for a moment, and the man begins to look uncomfortable, as though he's never had an athlete actually consider the question of whether he wants to sign an autograph. The yells from the plaza are still audible around the corner of the buildings. Sidney thinks of Nash and his need to hide in the lunch crowd earlier, of Russia tonight and the media's incessant questions. "You're a speed skater, right?" says Sidney finally, and watches the surprised expression that flashes across the man's face.

"Yeah, how'd you --."

"Good," Sidney interrupts. "In that case, I want to make a deal with you." A plan begins to take shape in Sidney's brain, a wonderful, somewhat devious plan.

"A deal." Sven looks increasingly doubtful.

"Yeah. If you give me your jacket now, I'll sign it and I'll get everybody else on the team to sign it too. We have practice in half an hour, I'll just pass it around. The only thing is, you have to show up at the locker room after practice to get it. And you have to help me play a prank on a teammate."

"What?" Now the guy just looks confused. Sidney explains about speed skaters, and Nash's paranoia. "He mentioned that one of these days he'd step out of the shower and there'd be a speed skater with a marker standing by the towels."

"And I'm going to be that speed skater." Sven grins at the idea.

"That's the plan."

"It sounds like fun. I'll do it."

"Great!" Sidney gives him directions about what to say to security, and how to find the locker room at the arena. The team will get a kick out of it, and they all need something to break the tension. Sidney trades jackets so that Sven can get some speed skaters to sign the maple leaf windbreaker, and swipes his card through the slotted reader at the front door of Canada House with a smirk.

*

"Don't fool yourselves that it will be easy," Hitchcock says, looking around the benches of the room. Team Canada, arrayed out in their gear surrounding him, is sweaty and exhausted, the product of an hour and a half of morning skates and another hour of precision drills in the afternoon. They face Russia in the next round, and Sidney isn't fooling himself one bit: nothing about that battle will be easy. "But we _can_ win," says Hitchcock, "And we _will_ win because we have to." The hard truth of it: they don't have a choice.

Around the room, various players nod agreement, bobbing heads from Iggy and Eric who sit to either side of Sidney, from Weber who sits opposite him and seems to be ripping through the tape on his hands with his teeth, from Neids in his position beside Babcock where he can watch the rest of them. Hitchcock taps his open marker against the whiteboard, leaving little red dots in a trail like ants, surveying the team with pressed lips as they sit gathered after drills: the sweating, quietly tense best that Canada Hockey can produce. The Sharks line sits together near the door, and Heater nods for them. Marleau's tennis ball is steady in his right hand, still. There's more focus here and less nervous energy than before.

In the far corner, the knot of serenity that was formerly made up of only the Hawks players has expanded to include Mike Richards, Brenden Morrow, and Drew Doughty, sitting close with their thighs pressed against each other. Sidney envies them all, not even sure if they realize what's happening, the way they seem to draw strength from the core of concentrated focus that is Jonathan Toews at the moment. Keith's hand brushes the back of Seabrook's wrist, arms held out of view of most of the room but more public than Sidney could ever have imagined if he'd not seen it himself. None of the others seem to find it odd, and Sidney suspects this is principally because Jonny himself does not find it odd. Drew is watching Jonny as carefully as Sidney does, taking deep breaths until the rise and fall of his chest matches that of the Hawks captain and of Keith, his defensive partner for seemingly the rest of the Games. Sidney tacitly approves; Donut could find a worse model than those two.

It surprises Sidney when Jonny looks away from the whiteboard diagrams to meet his eyes, the raise of eyebrows a question Sidney doesn't want to answer. It's like falling, like figuring out he still has space to breathe or like remembering the cold at night with just the two of them, and Sidney sees Jonny nod, a gesture of solidarity that reminds Sidney of home, the Penguins. It's not a feeling like the ones he has with Geno or Sergei, but it punches him just behind the sternum with how much it reminds him of Mario -- he doesn't have to do this alone, there's someone else who will help him carry this team. Sidney nods back solemnly then glances off to his right at Babcock, who has his pen out of his mouth but is still chewing on the cap, who is taking notes, who has noticed. Let him, Sidney thinks almost viciously. Let him notice that someone else can do this, that I don't have to.

It's good for Canada if they're finally gelling as a team, he knows that, but Sidney isn't quite man enough yet not to feel the sting of bitter resentment that he is the only one who is the focus of a personal rivalry or of the media. For the others, it's Russia they have to fight, but for Sidney it's Russia generally and Ovechkin specifically -- Ovechkin and Semin and Geno -- whom he must be better than, and it's a burden he'd rather not carry. Toews's eyes across the dressing room, dark and steady from where he reclines relaxed with Keith at his side, are understanding. If Sidney saw pity -- if he saw it now after last night -- he might just hate Jonny for this, but there's only knowledge and support. They need to talk, Sidney thinks. This is getting dangerous, it's messing with his head. Jonny's opinions shouldn't matter as to how he plays his game, but they do.

"We know what they're bringing," says Hitchcock, "We know the weapons, we know they're strong, we know they can hurt us. But we also know that tonight, we can win this goddamn game, so let's go out there and outwork them."

The whole room seems to sigh, the claustrophobic sound of expectations exchanged, and for once Sidney is grateful that these practices are closed to fans, no screams of hero worship on the ice or noise through the concrete or vibrations in the arena to create more pressure than they put on themselves. It's a heavy enough weight already: this won't be easy, let's outwork them.

"Let's go," says Sidney, the first to stand, and the team follows him and stands also to gather sticks and gloves and head to the showers.

*

" _The fuck?_ screams Nash, and Sidney smiles to himself. Even afternoon practices on the day of the Russia game don't have to be all about pressures and responsibility. "No, I won't sign your --," he hears, then, "Fine. No really, it's fine. Just, tell the rest of them to leave me alone, okay? I can't. I can't take this shit. Jesus fucking Christ."

Sidney glances up when Sven exits the showers, proudly holding a Dutch jacket that's now signed by every single player on Team Canada. Some of the other guys in the dressing room are smirking back at him. He needed their cooperation to sign the jacket, so they all know about Sidney's prank.

"I'll kill you," says Nash, walking by in just a towel and the shredded remains of his dignity.

"I'll wait on that," says Sidney, already feeling better about the game to come.

*

"Get the hell out of my way," he screams at the top of his lungs, trying to make himself heard over the crowd. Chris Pronger cocks his head to the side like he still can't understand, but he scoots down the bench anyway, making a space near the door for Sidney to step into. There's no whistle, so it's not a too-many-men penalty; good, he got lucky. Sidney lets himself settle to the plastic seat and concentrates on breathing, trying to ignore the way his thighs are burning. He needs to get back out soon, get back in motion, or he'll cramp. That was a good shift, though, a satisfying shift. He didn't score, but they're up by one thanks to Getzy, and they'd kept the pressure on Nabby -- _fucking Nabokov_ , Sidney lets himself think -- for the entire shift. Sidney cracks his neck and elbows Pronger beside him because he can, because his team is on their way to winning and right now they are so fucking _lucky_ to be here in front of this crowd, to be wearing these sweaters.

It's reflex more than conscious thought when he slips his gloves off to check his stick, make sure it's still solid after taking two shots when he was on the ice. The gesture doesn't even require sight; he's more interested in the Jumbotron anyway, watching the seconds tick down and the big, bright '1 - 0' that means Sidney's life right now is amazing. The tape feels like it always does beneath his fingers: rough with cloth weave, marching in straight and even stripes across his blade. He tests, but there's no more than the usual flex to it, no deceptive cracks to upset his game. It should be good for at least another shift.

Sidney shoves his hands back into his gloves and glances over at Nieds, who is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, praying like Sidney is that this team can keep it up, that they can pull this thing out.

"Sharks," yells Babcock, "Boyle," and Bergeron, who is close enough to hear, elbows Heatley beside him and cocks his head in the direction of the coach. Heater startles, looks up towards Babcock to check, then nods. Next out. 

Sidney pops his mouthpiece and runs his tongue over his teeth, then shuffles down the bench as Getzy's line ices up to the door, showers of snow in all directions. It's a defensive change too, so Sidney shifts another two positions down the plank before he grabs a water bottle and sprays himself in the face.

"Water," yells Keith, and Sidney tosses his own bottle down the bench; he doesn't need it any more.

"Heater, Heater _pass_ ," Marleau shouts out on the ice, and Sidney looks up, something in that voice enough to tingle the base of his spine, the place just beneath his shoulder blades that knows by instinct what the angle for a shot should be. It's just two seconds -- such a short time, such an _insignificant_ amount of time -- but Sidney's already on his feet. The whole goddamn bench is on their feet; they know exactly what it means when the puck hits Boyle's tape and he fires.

"Yes," screams Babcock from behind him, and his voice is suddenly loud and conspicuous in the eye-of-the-storm, held-breath instant that envelopes the building. The lamp comes on, red for Canada.

'2 - 0', say the beautiful white numbers on the Jumbotron, and Sidney holds out his gloves for the skaters to bump when they come by the bench in a passing breeze that feels like winning, the echo of the goal fizzing in his blood like someone dumped soda water into his veins. Beside him, Pronger is jumping with both hands in the air. On the other side, Marty has his head thrown back and is laughing in wracking breaths, cupped out glove extended to smack Boyle on the head when he skates by.

Sidney only catches it out of the corner of his eye when Babcock yells something else; he can't hear a thing over the din. The building is exploding, a hotdog, pretzel, plastic cup, polyester, sweating inferno of noise that keeps them jumping up and down in celebration. There's no way to resist sound like that, it carries them and makes them invincible. It's over, Sidney thinks. There's nothing that Russia can do against this feeling, this massive euphoria. It's no longer a question of score, it's a question of destiny. Lemaire leans in close, so that his ear is just in front of Babcock's mouth to hear him yell again, then he edges down the bench to tap Toews on the shoulder. Not Sidney's faceoff, then.

When Jonny bends over beside the ref, Sidney thinks of scars. There's a glint in his eyes, a posture, a shift of the shoulders beneath his pads that Sidney is certain no one else will notice, but it's obvious when Sidney looks, because he knows. This is Jonny thinking of winning. It's a puzzle piece slotting into place, all that bolted concentration is Jonny realizing that there's nothing out there to stop him.

They win the faceoff.

Canada establishes an aborted position in the Russian zone, before Gonchar steals the damn puck from Nash and makes towards the other end. Gonchar, Semin, Malkin; Sidney watches the progression and expects the next pass -- _Semin for the wrister and Lu had better look out_ \-- when Toews steps up with a ferocity that says maybe he's thinking of scars too.

The puck might as well be taped to their sticks. "Go!" Sidney screams, "Go, go, take it," as Toews steals the puck, passes to Richards in the rear center. Inevitable, really, the breakaway seems almost scripted as they rush up toward Nabokov with more speed than the Russians know how to handle. Even above the sudden din of the arena, Sidney can hear the cut of skates, the _swish swish slice_ of something that's suddenly more and more of a certainty. The boards under his gloves are so rough they must be cracking, even through the padding on his hands. "Nasher, look out! Look for it," he yells, "Nasher," and Rick does. Poetry in motion. Two on one break with the puck on Toews's stick, dissolving to a passing chance.

Goalie down.

Goal, and again the red red red light for Canada.

Beside him, Pronger's voice cracks he yells so hard, inarticulate and wordless, victorious. 3 - 0, and Sidney knows this feeling. This is the feeling that raised every hair on his head to its end in the Stanley Cup finals.

The pounding on the boards behind them, the blare of the PA, the deafening shouts and screams and whistles and cheers and roars and tumult -- this is what inevitability sounds like. There's seven minutes left in the first still, but even now it's over, they've won against Russia.


	4. Chapter 4

Yzerman absolutely forbids that he and Marty should walk back through the cold, once the media is done and the showers are over and the team has finished winding down. "No. What would happen if someone recognized you, after that game? There'd be a mob." Sidney huffs into his scarf and says nothing, because it's been a risk every time they've done it, but Stevie Y is right. Tonight is different.

"No," Stevie repeats. "Get on the bus." So Sidney does and Marty follows, shifting awkwardly for a man who usually carries a great deal of grace in his body. Marty sits beside Lu, who pats him on the back and makes sympathetic murmurs in French too rapid for Sidney to translate. Sidney sits beside Jonny and fidgets with his mittens, picking at tiny balls of red fuzz around the leaf in the center. He understands Marty's nervousness and shares it; he hopes that in doing something different, they aren't somehow messing with the winning streak they've got going. The logical part of his brain says it's a stupid superstition, but Sidney still feels a frission of anxiety.

"We played good," says Jonny softly, sounding content. Sidney touches his side briefly in understanding, the World Championship leaf if he's got the spot right. When Jonny makes a low hum of agreement, Sidney takes his hand away and looks past to the window, where beyond the thin veil of ice crystals on the glass he can see the stadium lamps that light the block party at the Plaza of Nations.

"Two more," Sidney says. Jonny nods, and they're quiet the rest of the way back to the room.

When they get inside, Jonny heads immediately for the bathroom, leaving Sidney to change out of his suit and settle into bed with the remote. The Sweden-Slovakia game has just started, so Sidney makes a pile out of his pillows and reclines back to watch, taking mental inventory of the new aches blossoming in his body. His knee is complaining, and he took a hard puck to the ribs that feels like it's setting up to be a knocker of a bruise. He should probably tape it for the next game.

Jonny comes back out of the bathroom and hangs up his suit, glances at the television, then seems to hesitate, watching Sidney, who is suddenly acutely self-conscious of his bare feet, bare chest, the way his legs are splayed a little in an attempt to find a position that eases his knee. He watches for long enough that Sidney reaches for the remote and turns the sound down on the TV just to have something to do with his hands.

"What?" he asks at last, but Jonny just shakes his head and takes two steps toward the bed. He wraps his hand around Sidney's ankle, careful fingers light against the thin skin over the bone. The touch instantly awakens memories of the night before, Jonny breathing soft and still beneath his cheek. It makes his cock twitch. "What?" he says again.

"Scoot over."

Sidney opens his mouth, then closes it again and obeys. Jonny climbs into the bed with him, sitting close so that their feet brush and their shoulders are pressed against each other. After a few seconds, Jonny reaches across his lap to grab the remote from where Sidney holds it balanced on his thigh. Sidney inhales sharply at the proximity, the visual of Jonny's hand so close to his crotch, the idea of Jonny reaching for him that way. But Jonny ignores him and merely turns the volume back up, settling in to watch the game.

They're midway through the second frame -- Zetterberg has just scored for Sweden -- when Jonny says, "Last night."

"Yeah," says Sidney, because he isn't really sure what he _should_ say.

"You--. You want me?" Jonny says slowly, cautiously. He's still staring at the TV, watching the game with far more concentration than a neutral zone draw deserves.

Sidney is abruptly miserable. "Yes? No? I don't know, it's never been like this before. I don't know what--." He trails off, watching Jonny out of the very corner of his eye, trying to see what he's thinking without turning his head. They're still pressed together along the whole length of his left side, so he would feel if Jonny had flinched or pulled away. "I don't know," he repeats, miserable.

There is a long pause. Slovakia scores a goal.

"Okay," says Jonny simply. At this, Sidney does turn his head to look at him.

"Okay?"

Jonny looks away from the TV to face him. His eyes are steady, and he blinks once. He still isn't pulling away.

Sidney's brows draw together in confusion, then smooth again. It certainly wasn't what he expected, but he can't deny that it makes him happy, a certain burning steady warmth settling into the space behind his sternum. It's unlike the lightheaded feeling of joy that's been riding with him since the final buzzer sounded on Russia's defeat, but this has been a night for all kinds of euphoria. Jonny is still watching him, and Sidney stares back, takes in the features of his face. Jonny blinks again and looks back at the game.

An hour and a half later, seconds after the final buzzer, Sidney throws his head back and laughs. "Slovakia? We're playing _Slovakia_ in semis?"

Toews shoves him in the shoulder, rocking him to the side. "Hey, Slovakia looked good."

"No, _Hossa_ looked good. It's just--. It's _Slovakia_ , not Russia or Sweden."

Jonny shoves him again, harder this time, laughing at him. Sidney retaliates by tackling him, grunting when Jonny's elbow lands on the bruise forming over his ribs. They wrestle across the bed, laughing still because it feels good to laugh with the adrenaline still in their veins, as though they hadn't properly celebrated their own win until that release. The match starts out in fun but rapidly grows more serious, Sidney's competitive nature not allowing him to back down once challenged. Jonny throws him off the bed, and Sidney leaps back up, headbutting Jonny firmly in the stomach and pushing him across the mattress so Sidney can climb back into the game.

The comforter is entirely on the floor, the pillows are scattered across the room where they fell after being used as clubs or thrown, and one side of the sheets have come off the mattress before Sidney manages to take advantage of his stockier build to finagle Jonny into a judo hold and pin him. "Ha," Sidney gloats, and Jonny struggles futilely for a few long moments before giving up and going motionless, still tense and testing Sidney's grip, but no longer actively fighting him.

"I think I'm laying on the remote."

"Sorry," Sidney says, not sorry at all. "Oh, was I supposed to let you up?" He's holding Jonny's chin pinned forward with an arm behind his neck, which puts all the weight of his shoulders on Jonny's chest to immobilize him. One knee is forcing Jonny's hips to the side to take away any chance of momentum, and his other arm locks the position to keep Jonny still. They're both breathing hard, and Sidney tightens the hold a little more when sweat starts to make his grip slip.

Beneath him, Jonny's muscles go limp, unresisting and surrendered. Sidney keeps his guard up for another few seconds before relaxing the arm around Jonny's neck, so that Jonny's chin is no longer trapped in a tuck and his head falls back to rest on Sidney's arm. They're very close. He realizes that he can feel Jonny's breath on his face, and it shouldn't be as intimate a thing as it seems. A pink flash of tongue draws Sidney's eyes downward for a moment, and when he looks back up to meet Jonny's gaze, he knows that he's been caught staring at Jonny's mouth. Jonny is watching him too carefully with those bottomless black eyes when he repeats the gesture, and Sidney can't help but gasp for breath. He’s never done anything like this before.

Sidney closes his eyes, because Jonny is staring at him with a wide, stunned expression, almost ferocious in his focus. It’s too much to take in, too much to think about, so he concentrates on the feel of Jonny’s breath on his own mouth, the way they’re sharing air and the way that Jonny smells like sweat and gear, even though he’d taken a shower after the game.

“Sidney,” Jonny breathes, barely audible, soft puff of air like a kiss. Sidney feels himself drawn downward millimeter by millimeter, as though the force of Jonny’s attention bears its own gravity, and he knows the moment before his lips touch skin because Jonny inhales a fast, hard breath through his nose. There’s no pressure and barely any contact, but Sidney shudders anyway from how momentous it feels when their lips meet, in the base of his spine and the nape of his neck, in places nowhere near his mouth. Sidney takes a deep breath and draws away.

"You --," says Jonny, then leans up and raises his head the two centimeters it takes to meet Sidney's mouth again. This time it's harder, clumsier but still _good_ , and when it ends Sidney shifts down Jonny's body to rest easier and lay his palm on Jonny's chest.

Which maybe he shouldn't have done. Because the movement makes him acutely aware that he's not the only one aroused by this, and the thought that he can feel Jonny's hard cock pressed against the muscles of his stomach, only fabric between them, is enough to have Sidney shuddering again. Jonny leans up on his elbows and Sidney starts to draw away, but is pulled back down by a quick hand. It shifts them again, puts his pelvis right on top of Jonny's, who arches a little, rubbing. 

"Fuck," whispers Sidney. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." It's _weird_ , it's unheard of and a distraction in the biggest tournament he's ever played, and he knows better, but it feels so damn good. Jonny is murmuring to him, low words that Sidney can't hear enough to understand. He buries his face in Jonny's neck, ear pressed against curve of throat, and rides the feel and the sound and the smell and the presence of whatever this thing is they're doing. His hands settle on ribs and a shoulder before Sidney thinks about it and moves one hand down to touch the C mark like a talisman.

It's not fast or rough or even particularly satisfying, just subtle little motions that push their cocks against each other, enough friction to feel really damn good and draw that feeling out for as long as he likes. The best part is Jonny's body, the low grumbling noises he makes and Sidney echoes, the way his hands roam and eventually settle in Sidney's hair, lifting his head just enough for more kisses -- still chaste, still small and delicate like the ghosts of real kisses and still feeling enormous in Sidney's head.

"It's okay," Jonny whispers in searching touches, brushes of mouth against the bridge of his nose or his eyebrow. 

"Okay," Sidney echoes, feeling brave as he reaches down to cup Jonny in a gesture startlingly reminiscent of the way Jonny had touched him the night before. Jonny pushes up hard into his hand, and suddenly Sidney is ravenous, he can't get enough. He can't get his hands into Jonny's pants easily, but the struggle is worth it when Jonny's skin feels velvet to the touch and Jonny's voice breaks on a stifled moan. 

"Let me," says Jonny, reaching for him. "You too, let me. You too." 

It's fumbling and awkwardly angled and not very easy. Jonny's thumbnail catches at the underside of his cock and Sidney chokes on a yelp, to Jonny's stammering apologies. The fabric of Jonny's pants chafes against his wrist, leaving a raw feeling that tinges with each stroke. But Jonny is real and heavy in his hand. The scars stand out particularly white and stark against the flush of Jonny's chest, his nipples in small peaks that distort the perfect curve of the C minutely. And Sidney's own cock is so hard it verges on painful when Jonny's fingers rub at the base of him, circle the flare of the head.

Jonny comes first, when Sidney pushes a wrist deeper into his pants to touch his balls. The skin is very soft and drawn tight, and all it takes is a butterfly scrape of Sidney's nails, careful not to hurt, before he can feel them move under his fingertips and Jonny's cock jumps against his wrist. Sidney wants to memorize the shock on his face, eyes blown open wide and cheeks fiery red. It's so very strange, but something in Sidney settles with the oddity of the night and finally rests.

Beneath him, Jonny lies panting for a moment before a sly smile breaks across his face. "These pants are going to be disgusting," he says, and it surprises a bark of laughter out of Sidney.

"We'll change them."

Jonny's hand is still on his cock, unmoving but warm. "Can I touch you still?" Jonny asks, and Sidney nods. The hand goes away and Jonny pushes him over onto his back, leaning up over him before touching him again. Jonny's strokes are steady and even, a slow burn that curls Sidney's toes. They kiss in dandelion-fragile touches, and Sidney comes when that mouth trails down his throat and Jonny latches teeth around the peak of his nipple, the shock of sensation enough to bow up Sidney's back and send him over the edge. He hadn't known that he liked his nipples played with before. Maybe it's just with Jonny.

Sleep that night, after fresh pants for both of them and awkward goodnights in separate beds, comes slowly. Sidney drifts off finally, restless, unsure of whether he wants to dream of gold medals or of Jonny beneath him and still. He wakes up again half an hour later when the mattress dips and a warm chest settles against his back.

"Goodnight, Sidney," Jonny breathes against his ear. Sidney mumbles incoherently and sleeps again.

*

"Watch this," whispers Seabrook, burying his smile in a mouthful of linguine alfredo. From under the table, he punches Sidney in the thigh and Sidney looks down to see that Seabrook's hand is holding a cell-phone. From Sidney's other side, Jonny looks down to see what the commotion is, and rolls his eyes.

"You didn't," Jonny says.

"Oh, I _did_ ," says Seabrook, pleased with himself, a spot of alfredo sauce lingering in the corner of his mouth. He wiggles his eyebrows at Sidney, who wonders what he's up to.

The team has gathered together to eat supper at a small Italian restaurant on the edge of the city instead of in the large and noisy Village cafeteria. They've got the restaurant to themselves and the food is amazing. Sidney suspects that the escape from fellow athletes and media pressure, the hours sequestered for just teammates and focus, is the coaching staff's version of a reward for their performance in the Russia game.

"Duncs --," begins Jonny, pleading, and Keith looks up from across the table.

"Hey, I'm Switzerland. Leave me out of it." Keith's smile shows his dimples and the lines beside his eyes, amused as he cuts into a ravioli, studiously nonchalant.

"Yeah, man." Seabrook fist-bumps Keith across the table in a show of solidarity, then as Sidney watches, he presses 'Send' on the phone. An envelope pops up on the screen, showing that a text message has been sent. Seabs leans over and whispers in Sidney's ear. "Follow me to the bathroom in two minutes, as soon as you see Donut go berzerk."

"What?" says Sidney, but Seabs is already pushing his chair back from the table and disappearing in the direction of the loo. Jonny rolls his eyes again and stares down at his manicotti, refusing to glance at the other end of the table, where Drew Doughty is laughing at Eric Staal's impression of Lemaire's prissiest accent.

Sidney watches out of the corner of his eye and a moment later, sure enough, Doughty reaches absently down and glances at his phone. He's still laughing, but the smile slides off his face as he pulls the phone closer and reads the message again. Sidney can see his eyes go huge and alarmed, and he waves the phone at Staal, who leans over to take a look.

Beside him, Jonny sighs. "If you want to see the rest of the fun, better go now." He's shaking his head as though familiar with this routine.

Curious, Sidney stands and meanders back to the bathroom, where Seabrook is clutching the phone. Keith is standing beside him and looking over his shoulder, though Sidney hadn't noticed him leaving the table, both of them leaning back against the wall, their heads together as they stare at the little screen. "What the hell, man? What'd you do to Donut?"

"Oh, what?" Seabrook looks up at him, then back at the phone. "I stole his phone earlier. Switched the number for his girlfriend's phone with the number for this one, then sent him a text that she'd found an English professor who's really hot, so they're breaking up as of now."

"So wait, he thinks that you --."

"-- Are his girlfriend, yes." Sidney isn't sure that he likes the manic evil on Seabrook's face when he smiles like that. "Just wait until he calls her to see what's up and gets 'the professor' on the phone."

"How's he going to get the --."

"Shhh!" Seabrook shushes him, and Keith makes waving motions in his direction to be quiet as the phone in Brent's hand begins to ring. "Do you wanna --" he says, at the same time that Keith says, "I'll do it," so Seabs pushes the phone into Keith's hands and he presses the answer call button.

"Hallo?" Sidney has never heard Keith attempt to do a British accent before. He's really really bad at it. All three of them stare at the phone as it squawks at them. Sidney can't quite make out the words, but the tone is certainly irate.

"Nay," says Keith, "Nay, you've got the right number." A pause, in which the phone fusses loudly in an electronic imitation of Doughty's voice. Sidney can hear _where_ and _who the hell_ and _give her the phone_ in among the jumble of words. "Well, I can't do that, proper, see?" says Keith. "She's uh, ooh. Indisposed, like." More squawking. "No, she's. Her mouth is full, see? There's -- ah! -- not much room for talking. She's really good though, I promise. Quite." Keith gives a loud, overly dramatic groan and the phone emits a squeak so high-pitched that Sidney is unwillingly impressed. He hadn't known Doughty's voice could get that high. "No," says Keith, "No, I'm sure she says hello. Don't you dear?" He looks over at Seabrook who nods furiously. "Yes, she definitely says -- oh, oh that's _good_ \-- hello."

Sidney manages not to laugh out loud, but it's a close thing. Through the windows of the restroom, he can actually hear Doughty outside the restaurant yelling, in addition to hearing him over the phone. Keith holds the earpiece away from his ear so as not to be deafened by the threats coming his way.

"No, actually," says Keith. "Well, I do thank you for your kind thoughts sir, but --." Another round of yelling. "Well, perhaps she just prefers professors. We are prefer-. Profer-." Keith coughs. "We are professerable."

And with that, Sidney has had it. He cracks up, which in turn sets off Seabrook and Keith. The phone goes deadly quiet, all the yelling outside ceased.

"Shit," says Seabrook. "Come on, let's get out of here."

When they re-emerge from the loo, Doughty is back at the table, his head in his hands, still visibly upset. The rest of the team seems to be smiling, though, and Eric Staal is patting him on the back while trying not to laugh.

"That wasn't funny, guys," Doughty says quietly.

"Aw, come on, Donut. It was a little funny." Seabrook is not very talented at being comforting. Nash and Marty seem to agree with him though; there's snickering all around the table.

"Hey," Keith says gently, quieting the snickers, and Doughty looks up. "It's okay. You can call her after dinner, I kept the number in my phone. And you can have Seab's cheesecake to make it up to you, he's fat enough as it is."

"Oy," says Seabrook without much fire, and Keith touches him on the arm to quiet him. Doughty sniffs and nods, and that seems to be the end of it. They sit back down, and Sidney resumes his interrupted meal. It really is good food.

At the other end of the table, Niedermayer explains the uproar to the coaching staff. Hitchcock chuckles and Lemaire laughs out loud. "I can't believe I'm expected to win medals with you morons," Babcock says.

*

Marian Hossa slides up the half-boards to take a drop pass from Demitra, kicks the puck from his skate to his stick, dangles back down toward the near face-off circle, and fires a pass to a wide-open Gaborik for the one-timer and the score. The buzzer goes off and Chara pile-drives Gaborik into the ice in celebration.

"Okay, stop it there and rewind it eight seconds," says Babcock's voice into the dark of the dressing room, and the video on the screen pauses in mid-fist-pump and rewinds to just before where Hossa took the shot. "Where's the breakdown?"

There's quiet in the room for a moment, then Morrow's voice. "Their near-side D is back too far. He's covering a pass that Hossa can't make, and it leaves the lane open for the pass across."

"Exactly." A small red laser dot hits the screen and circles jerkily around the out-of-position defenseman. "Hossa got himself into position for that one, but that was not a pass that it should have been impossible to defend. Sweden gave that one up." A moment of shuffling papers.

"King should have had that one," Flower says softly. "He had clear eyes on it the whole way."

"Farside D should have had his stick in the way," Seabrook adds. 

Babcock clears his throat. "Okay, next clip."

On the screen, the Swedish defense corrals a dumped puck and the whole Swedish line circles back to regroup -- a 2-2-1 formation, two men up either side along the boards and a defenseman trailing them to feed the puck to whoever gets open. The trailing D yells to his forwards, a short sharp word that Sidney can't understand, then shoves the puck along to the furthest forward up. Two passes and a confused defensive assignment later, a turnover. Slovakia takes the puck on a two-on-one rush towards the Swedish goal. Lundqvist bets the farm on the puck carrier being the shooter, and loses that bet when the man -- Zednik, Sidney checks the roster sheet he's holding on his knees -- passes instead. Goal Slovakia.

"Pause it," says Babcock, and this time doesn't even have to ask.

"Bad turnover," says Bergie. "Fifty-five there for Sweden should have been the second defenseman back up at the blue line, or even behind it, but he stepped into the zone to make that hit and hung his partner out to dry. There wasn't anybody to stop the two-on-one break going back."

"Rewind it," says Babcock. They watch it again. "How should Sweden have defended it?"

"Don't leave your zone," says Pronger, bored. He's fiddling with the chinstrap on his helmet.

"Don't leave your zone," echoes Babcock, dry, and something in his tone makes Sidney suddenly very glad that he is not Pronger at this moment. "Don't leave your fucking zone to make the flashy hit. But when we played goddamn Russia in the biggest match of the Games yet, what do we find Mr. Christopher Pronger doing?"

Sidney winces, and sees Corey Perry beside him flinch too. The video starts; it's the Russia game this time, not Slovakia, and Sidney recognizes himself skating off the ice at the end of a change. The Russians have the puck headed into the Canadian zone, and Sidney recognizes this play from memory, knows exactly what's going to happen. From the uncomfortable shifting around the rest of the dressing room, most of the others on the team do too. Sidney can see Pronger drop his head into his hands, not wanting to watch.

On the film, Volchenkov lines up a shot, and from across the corner of the frame comes Pronger's jersey. Pronger makes the hit, but Volchenkov gets a pass off and a half-second later the light flashes behind the goal, Kalinin burying the one-timer that Pronger was too far out-of-position to defend. Babcock pauses the tape on a picture of Pronger on his ass, the puck in the net several feet behind him.

"You leave your position, the other team scores. We have one chance at this, one chance to get this right, and every other team on the ice would like nothing more than to see Canada go home without a medal. So for god's sake _stay in your fucking positions._ "

Nods all around; hopefully they've learned their lesson, and the tape switches back to the Sweden-Slovakia footage as they try to figure out how Slovakia beat Forsberg and Lundqvist, looking for chinks in the armor that might help them win tomorrow's game. The realization is unreal -- Sweden gone and Russia gone. Powerhouses disappeared, and with only two more games to go, it weighs like an ocean in the back of Sidney's head: _there but for the grace of God go we_. 

They have to win this next one, there simply isn't any other choice.

*

Sidney returns to the room with every intention of doing nothing but falling into bed. After supper and the video session was another media scrum -- more questions of _Does Canada have what it takes_ or _Is Canada feeling any pressure_ \-- and then a meeting of the captain and alternates with the coaching staff at night before he was allowed back to the hotel. When he reaches the room, the lights are already out and Jonny is a snoring lump beneath the covers of his bed, _Sidney's_ bed. He blinks and tries not to think too hard about why this strange thing they're doing makes him feel warm to see his bed occupied, then dumps his bag in the corner as quietly as he can and steps to strip out of interview clothes. Changing requires more care than usual, and he favors the shoulder that Weber had nailed in practice while slipping out of his jacket and button-down shirt. The undershirt beneath the button-down is another matter entirely, and Sidney grits his teeth but doesn't manage to entirely contain the grunt of pain that raising that arm above his head brings.

The lump in the bed snorts, then goes quiet. After a moment, Jonny mumbles, "You back?"

"Yeah, finally escaped," says Sidney. Jonny had dealt with a media scrum of his own, but had gotten out at least an hour earlier.

"Mmmph," says the lump that is Jonny.

Sidney strips out of pants to his boxer-briefs, considers changing into sleep pants, and gives up on the idea. Washing his face and answering the emails he'd meant to get to tonight can wait until tomorrow, all he wants is sleep. Sidney runs his fingers through his hair, and glances once more over at the bed.

When he lifts the corner of the comforter, he discovers Jonny is shirtless and laying on his side, curved in a lazy semi-circle with his face twisted toward the pillow in shadows. Sidney crawls in behind him and presses himself to the contours of Jonny's body, hesitating for a moment before draping an arm over Jonny's waist. Jonny isn't like a girl and Sidney doesn't want to insult him, but the position is comfortable and familiar. Jonny leans back against him, settling in, and after a moment Sidney feels a hand skim down his forearm and cover his own, moving it down until his fingertips dip just under the elastic waistband of Jonny's pants.

Sidney hesitates a bit, then slides his hand all the way in and loosely fists Jonny's cock. "This what you want?" he whispers into the hair on the lower curve of Jonny's neck, and Jonny makes that same sleepy "Mmmph," sound, so Sidney strokes him lightly, tugging in a lazy rhythm set by the small twitches of Jonny's hips. It's slow and shockingly easy, like this, the feel and smell of Jonny in his sheets and in front of him, the soft and wet head of his cock under Sidney's thumb, the aborted sleepy noises Jonny makes every time Sidney rubs just right down the slit of his cock to the delicate flare beneath.

"'s good," Jonny breathes, and Sidney presses his nose between shoulderblades, exhausted after the long day, exhaling into the cleft and dip of muscles beside spine.

Touching seems more familiar like this, holding Jonny's cock just like he'd hold his own -- same hand, same grip. Not nearly as awkward as the day before, and after long moments with no protests and only Jonny's sleepily unguarded noises to guide him, Sidney begins to enjoy himself, to play. He varies the strokes whenever Jonny gets close, backs him off and listens to the resulting unhappy, wanting sounds. Jonny whispers something into the pillow, and Sidney can't quite hear him.

"What?"

Jonny lifts his head and turns blindly over his shoulder. "A little rougher. Just a little?"

"Like this?" and Sidney adjusts. Jonny's moan and the way his hips jerk forward is answer enough.

"Yeah," Sidney whispers. He can feel Jonny swell, tremble in his hand. "Wait." Jonny gives a complaining noise. Sidney soothes him with a press of palm against his balls. "Just, take your pants off, okay? Less laundry."

Jonny snorts but obeys, pushing the pants down to a lump beneath his feet at the very end of the bed. Sidney rewards him with long deliberate touches, as rough as Jonny seems to like it. It doesn't take much time for Jonny to come in soft panting breaths, and Sidney has barely finished wiping off his hand on the bedskirt off the edge of the mattress when the rise and fall of Jonny's chest grows even and slow.

"You didn't --" says Jonny, thick and hazy, reaching back to touch Sidney's thigh warm through the boxer-briefs. Sidney catches his breath at it, then covers Jonny's hand with his own and presses it back in front of them both, Sidney's arm once more around Jonny's waist. He links their fingers.

"I don't need to," Sidney says, and shoves forward a little with his hips so Jonny can feel that he isn't hard. Thick, yes, turned on but too tired to bother doing anything about it.

"Owe you."

Sidney thinks for a moment about how it makes him feel, to be owed an orgasm by a teammate. "Go to sleep," he says.

They do.

In the morning, Sidney awakens to the feel of Jonny touching his hand, tracing his fingers curiously and tapping at his wrist. Sidney grunts, slides the hand down to press firmly against the line of coarse hair below Jonny's navel, and curls closer. "Oh," whispers Jonny, and presses back so that they fit together well. Sidney lays his hand over the buffalo on Jonny's hip. For a while they simply lie there, and Sidney times his breathing to the expand-contract of ribs beneath his arm.

Then Jonny shivers and leans forward a bit, drawing away and reaching back. Sidney chokes on a quick gasp when Jonny palms his underwear and reaches in to fish his cock out through the slit. The touch is both matter-of-fact and intimate, a combination that mingles with the lingerings of sleep to send Sidney's vision thick and white with mist.

"This way," Jonny whispers, and shifts back so that they're once again pressed flush and Sidney's cock is trapped between Jonny's naked thighs, warm and snug and _incredible_. When Sidney hitches his hips forward, he can feel his cockhead push against the base of Jonny's balls, and the thought is almost unbearably arousing.

"Jonny," he says, meaning to ask _are you sure_ or _what made you think this_ or _is this what you really want_ , but what comes out of his mouth is just a groan. Jonny pushes his hand down again, following that trail of hair. Sidney wraps a fist around him and thrusts experimentally, listening for the stuttered out breath when the thrust pushes Jonny's cock through his grip.

The feeling is strange, too dry and the friction is almost too great. Sidney is careful with his movements for a while, trying not to chafe them both in unbearably tender places, but sweat and the clear liquid that leaks from his cock soon aid that problem. Jonny's inner thighs are strong and tight, and covered lightly with hair. It's -- _different_. Like nothing he's ever felt before, and he wonders what it feels like from the other side, what it might feel like to have Jonny do this to him, with him. He tries to make it good, strokes with the rhythm that he remembers from last night and feels a sharp spike of triumph through his throat when Jonny ruts back against him, trying to get more of all the sensation at once.

It doesn't take long for either of them to come, and the entire time they're taking showers and getting dressed, Sidney feels something deep and proprietary well up in him at the thought that he'd come right up against Jonny's balls, that Jonny had taken it and _liked_ it.

Nash tells him that he looks cheerful when he walks into the locker room for practice, a suspicious note in his voice. Sidney tells him to go fuck himself, and smiles through the first round of pre-practice interviews anyway.

*

It's the eighteenth time he's answered this exact question, with this exact wording. Sidney is keeping count. The total rises to thirty-one if he allows for variant wording. The morbid humor in the ever-growing numbers lets him smile briefly and look pleasant before answering. They also keep him from fucking strangling the reporter doing the asking.

"I do think I could be better, yes. And it's something that I work on every day, in practice and with the coaches in video. I look for ways to make myself more effective, ways that I can help this team. But at the same time, it's a team sport, and I'm lucky enough to play on a team with guys like Eric Staal or the Sharks boys or Chris Pronger, so when the bounces don't go my way, there's still everyone else out there playing huge for Canada." He smiles again at the end, this time a little more forced. It's a non-answer, but polite enough to end the line of questioning if the reporter isn't a complete asshole.

This one is.

"But you personally," he says, and Sidney could rip the smug little puke-green square right out of his coat pocket, the way he thrusts his chest out and puffs up toward the camera, as though his 5'7" will ever be as large or imposing as Sidney. "You personally do agree that you've not been playing well?"

Sidney grits his teeth through the next mechanical smile and hopes that the grinding noise of his molars doesn't make it down to the microphone. He'd only had that happen once, but it earned him a three-hour lecture from the Penguins media relations department and another hour of 'Media 101' refresher course. "I don't agree with that statement, no. I've not been scoring as much as I'd like to, of course, but I've got goals in a couple games and I think I've gotten an assist in a couple more. I'm doing okay in the dot, and I think I've been contributing when I'm not on the puck. Of course I wouldn't mind scoring more --" he laughs, make it sound jovial, show the world he's not worried, "-- but no, I wouldn't say that I've not been playing well."

"Time," says the clerk standing just off-camera, and Sidney could kiss her. This morning, she's become his favorite person in the world. The reporter and his camera crew and his stupid puke-colored suit shuffle off to where Lu is holding court at the other end of the room, surrounded by a pack of jackals bearing TV equipment. "Sid, you need anything before the next one?"

"I'm going to take five minutes and hit the can," he lies through his teeth, and flees the green room to the hall outside for a break.

The cast of players in the media junket is different today than it had been for earlier games. Today, Toews and Richards have both been conscripted into answering questions about shutting down Ovechkin in the Russia game. They, along with he, Lu, Neids, Pronger, and Iggy, were tasked with disseminating the team's talking points, and combating potential negative storylines for the series. The one he's been getting asked about a lot today is the idea that he isn't scoring enough. Sidney had been sick of the questions about what he needs to do to score more after the first half-hour. Now going on three hours, he's rapidly approaching the point of wrapping his stick around the head of the next reporter to ask.

Sidney wanders to the dressing room and sits down on one of the benches opposite the white boards, still covered with Hitchcock's X and O diagram of their plans for Hossa in the next game. The X for the slot winger on a planned faceoff is too high, it's a bad angle. Sidney carefully skirts the maple leaf in the center of the floor as he crosses to the board and erases the X with a finger, redrawing it in the proper spot. A noise from behind him, and Sidney checks over his shoulder. Niedermayer is standing in the doorway.

"Bad angle," Sidney says, as though that explains why he's hiding in the dressing room instead of out there doing his duty for the team.

"I saw them chase you," says Nieds. Sidney sighs.

"It's just a five minute break. I'll go back in. That little shit from the Juneau Star --."

"I know. We've been getting it too." Sidney could bang his brains against a wall. Nieds clears his throat and runs a hand through his greying hair. "We've got your back on this, Kid."

He nods and Nieds disappears back into the hall. Sidney sits down again, puts his elbows on his knees and stares at the maple leaf in the carpet.

The clock on the wall says that three minutes have passed when he stands, squares his shoulders, and takes the rest of the way back to the green room at a trot.

The clerk sees him and waves him over, checks his hair and makeup, and gives him a little shove towards the stool they've got set up for this one. The reporter is a woman, tall and blonde. Sidney recognizes her vaguely -- Carrie something, out of Toronto. She covers the Leafs. Sidney gives her a smile and she nods to the cameraman; the green light above the camera lens comes on and she starts, "I'm here with Sidney Crosby of Team Canada Hockey. Tell me, Sidney, you guys gave a great effort in the Russia game, but you personally were held off the scoresheet. Are you concerned about your lack of scoring lately?"

Tally number thirty-two, Sidney thinks. "I think I could do better, yes," he starts in again.

*

Lemaire is standing directly behind him and has been for most of the game. During this time, Sidney has developed a healthy admiration for his lung capacity, and possibly some minor hearing loss. It's gotten worse in the last few minutes, as Canada makes mistake after mistake against the Slovakians in their own zone.

"For fuck's sake," Lemaire shouts in Sidney's ear as the referees lift the net from on top of Luongo. Above them, the jumbotron shows a slow-motion replay of the train wreck: Weber drops his stick, picks it up, then drives Michal Handzus into the goal from behind, nearly decapitating Lu with the crossbar as the net falls on top of him. Beside Sidney, Iggy shifts uneasily. They came awfully close to losing their goalie. 

On the ice, Bergeron flubs the faceoff -- second in a row that he's lost -- and the biscuit stays near Lu's net. It caroms behind the goal then off the boards to Demitra. "No," yells Eric Staal from Sidney's other side, "No, Bergie, no!" but it's too late. Bergie follows the puck toward Demitra's stick, and runs straight into Doughty. They all go down in a heap. Sidney has two seconds of time to think, _that leaves Duncs defending two --_ before the puck is in the net and the light is on for the goal.

"Goddamn it," Iggy growls. Across the bench, shoulders slump and Sidney grits his teeth into his mouthpiece until it hurts. Their comfortable three-goal lead has been reduced to a one-goal lead in only the past five minutes, and there's still five minutes of hockey left to play.

Bergie skids up in front of where Babcock is chewing furiously on his pen cap. "I'm sorry coach," he says, and is interrupted by Babcock's furious yell of "Sit your ass down." Bergie nods, white lights of the arena flashing off the scratches on his face shield, and shuffles to a spot on the bench as far from Babcock's wrath as he can get.

Lemaire taps Toews on the shoulder, and Jonny looks up then nods, already in motion to vault the boards for the center ice faceoff. Sidney blinks. At the beginning of the Games, this faceoff would have been his; his job to turn the momentum back around with a strong shift after the other team scored. Now it's Jonny out there on the ice, trying to set a tempo that will let Canada hang on to this slim lead for the next four-and-a-half minutes of insanity. 

"Kid out next," says Babcock from behind him, so Sidney slings a leg over the board, motions to Eric and Iggy, adjusts his grip on his stick and traces the path of the puck behind Halak's goal. Toews floats high toward the blue line and flicks his stick toward the benches. A signal. A few seconds later, he cycles up toward the bench, and Sidney is over the wood and dashing toward the biscuit on the far side of the ice. 

They hang on. Lu plays like the puck is magnetized to his pads, save after save. The rest of them play like they just stepped out of juniors. Doughty runs over Bergie again, Weber falls twice, Thornton turns it over in the neutral zone. Sidney skates as hard as he can when he's out, and spends his time on the bench on his feet, shouting encouragement and chewing his mouthpiece like he could punch a hole through the rubber if he tried hard enough. His shoulders feel tight, his gloves too small. They can't lose this game, they just _can't_. 

Sidney comes back to the bench after a shift pinned back against the goal -- Eric saved them from disaster with a quick clear toward the end -- and takes deep jerking breaths as Jonny's line heads out to pick up play. The scoreboard shows 90 seconds left. Play settles into a crazy pace near the goal: stumbles, falls, a four man screen on the crease with Lu desperate to see the puck. Sidney's mouth is achingly dry, but he doesn't dare look away for long enough to reach water. Every man on the bench is standing and craning to see, the whole team desperately willing the puck to stay away from the net. To Sidney's right, Seabrook screams, "Near high, near high, take it" and Keith hears just in time to shift his stick to block a shot, trusting Seabrook's judgment blindly and playing better for it. Halak comes in to the bench for the extra Slovak attacker and Chara heads out with the apparent intent to kill Nash. Sidney is pretty sure his heart has stopped beating and has instead decided to explode.

The shift stretches interminably, as though the speed on the ice has slowed down everything else in the world. The Toews line has been out for a full minute, playing the fastest pace Sidney has seen yet at the Games, while Keith and Doughty have been out for nearly two. "Push it, Duncs," Seabrook shouts, and Sidney can see their defensemen struggle, force through the scream in their legs and the crush in their lungs, and he knows how it feels to find that extra reserve of _something_ that lets muscles go hard for just a little longer.

Thirty more seconds.

No one comes in for a change, because there's no time between the dull thuds of shots on shinpads, the sharper ticks of sticks on boards. Richards's board work is starting to get reckless, desperate for a clear so that the exhausted line can get off the ice. They can't allow in another goal, and Sidney is openmouthed, his gloves locked around the boards in preparation to go out. He needs to be out there, it's killing him to stand still and watch bone-tired teammates try to keep Canada ahead. He should be out there, where he's able to _do_ something.

Ten seconds. Still ahead.

Suddenly the slice and slide of skates, the thunk of blocked shots, the cowbells and airhorns and the deafening crowd gives way to a different sound -- a high clear _ping_ that puts Sidney's heart in his throat so quickly he feels like puking. Oh God, please no. Demitra has his hands in the air for Slovakia, but there's no light and no whistle, not yet, still hope. The split second of celebration is also a split second of hesitation, and it lets Nash clear the biscuit back to the blue line. Still no whistle. It's enough. A buzzer sounds, but there's no light at the goal and when Sidney looks up, the clock shows zeros on the time. They somehow held on.

On the ice, Toews collapses against Keith as though he's too tired from that last unending shift to stand without support. Richards practically takes a header over the boards when his knees give out just as he's reaching over for water. Seabrook skates over with a water bottle for Keith so that he doesn't have to come get it himself.

Around them, the entire building quivers with a chant of "We want U-S-A," loud enough to rattle his stick when he leans it against the boards, but at that moment Sidney can concentrate only on trying to soothe his body's visceral panic responses. The noise is both friendly and menacing. All those people, all those eyes, all those expectations after a game so unspeakably, uncomfortably close. Bile burns in his throat like sour poison, and he takes deep breaths, finally reaches for a water bottle. In two days they somehow have to play America like a team that knows they can win, and they just came two centimeters, one goal post, and five seconds from losing everything.


	5. Chapter 5

The walk back becomes appropriately miserable about ten seconds after Sidney steps out the rear entrance of Canada Hockey Place. It's raining, a few degrees too warm for snow. While the others run to the bus, Sidney hangs back and shakes his head when Babcock raises questioning eyebrows in his direction. Yzerman says nothing, so Babcock shrugs and steps through the open bus doors, pulling them closed behind himself. Sidney trudges off towards the sidewalk that will take him around the bay, and doesn't wait to see the bus leave the parking lot.

At first he trudges slowly, head bowed and hood pulled up, not wanting to attract attention. The wind pushes raindrops into his face, stinging cold and just at the edge of freezing properly. They bite like frustration, like punishment, and Sidney feels himself deserving. The truth is that they'd let that game go. They'd slacked off and felt comfortable when the slightest edge of comfort could have cost them a medal chance.

By the time he reaches the main sidewalk, the rain has become tiresome, less the penance he deserves and more just one more in a list of things that have turned out badly this night. He glances around at the crowd walking near him, all buried under umbrellas or walking quickly with their heads bent into the wind. His people, their people. Sidney sighs, then gives up on walking slowly and breaks into a jog. It isn't comfortable, his feet protesting in shoes that weren't made for running, but it lets him avoid questions even if someone were to notice him, and it covers ground quickly to get him back to the Village checkpoint in less than seven minutes.

When he gets to the room, Toews is still in the shower, and Sidney can hear the sounds of running water through the closed bathroom door. His clothes are soaking, so he strips down to boxer-briefs and leaves the rest in a heap by the door for housekeeping to pick up and launder in the morning. One spare towel from the closet later and he's drier, if not feeling any more settled. The frustration of those last minutes of the game still runs tar-thick beneath his skin. If he were home in Pittsburgh, he'd head down to the gym that Mario keeps in the basement and take out the violence he's currently feeling on a hanging bag. In the Village, though, someone would notice if Sidney Crosby spent two hours beating the stuffing out of a bag. Someone would tell a journalist and he would likely see the news of it on the headlines in the morning. One more complication that he doesn't need right now, not with so much that needs to be fixed on-ice before Sunday's final game.

Instead, Sidney throws himself onto his bed and folds his arms behind his head, trying to come up with a way of working out anxiety and pent up adrenaline. Toews's phone rings once, twice on the nightstand, but Sidney ignores it. It's only a minute or so before the sound of the water stops and Toews steps out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

"Oh," he says, "You're back."

"We sucked tonight."

"We were up for most of the game."

"And then we sucked." Sidney sits up on the bed, still too keyed-up for rest.

"Yeah, eh," Jonny runs a hand through the wet hair at the back of his scalp like he doesn't know how to deny the accusation.

"Fuck," whispers Sidney to the far wall. He stands, walks out to the balcony and looks down, walks back into the room, pacing. "We won," he says finally.

"Barely." It's taut, clipped, and in Jonny's voice, Sidney can recognize the edge of fear and frustration that's echoing through his own marrow. He wonders briefly what Toews does when he's home in Chicago to take off these rough edges. Perhaps he has his own hanging bag somewhere to hit.

"Whatever. Move." Sidney walks around him into the bathroom and spends longer than necessary getting ready for bed. He takes a blistering hot shower, warm enough to raise steam on the tile and turn his skin bright red. The water begins to soothe out the aches of the game in a way that the perfunctory post-game shower before facing the media couldn't. The bruise on his chest is getting worse, and one of his hands is sore after getting hit with a puck from Hossa. When all the sweat feels like it's gone from his skin and his muscles are loose enough that he can raise his arms to rinse his hair without pain, Sidney turns off the water and steps out to brush his teeth with more force than necessary. It's a debate over whether he should bother with fresh boxers, but in the end he decides against it and steps out naked.

Toews is waiting for him, standing in the doorframe with his arms crossed around his chest and his face tight. "Move," Sidney says, and isn't surprised when the command goes ignored.

He pushes Jonny aside to get past him, heading for his own bed, but Jonny pushes back, fierce. Sidney stumbles with the unexpected force of it. He falls facedown into the mattress that isn't his and bounces, then flips himself over and pushes up for a confrontation, but Jonny pushes him back again before he can truly get his balance. "Hey," Sidney starts to say, but he only gets about half the sound out before Jonny is on top of him, blunt knee forced into his side hard enough to hurt. One hand twists at his nipple, rough so that it hurts with a burn through his chest. Jonny bites at his mouth and shoulders, grabs his wrists and struggles to pin his arms, but Sidney returns with shoves so hard they border on punches.

With a growl that's still more frustration than aggression, Jonny manages to get a palm on Sidney's bare cock. He isn't even hard yet but as soon as he's touched, Sidney realizes in a flash what's happening here: adrenaline can come out as fight or fuck, and since there isn't anything to fight, they might as well pick the second option. Sidney is abruptly on board with this plan, and their battle shifts from a true fight to a clawing, frantic fumble for contact. They aren't even completely on the bed, but it doesn't matter; Sidney needs rough, not comfortable.

Jonny's hand doesn't feel _good_ on him per se, borderline violent and too demanding for what Sidney should enjoy, but damned if he isn't on the verge of coming so fast it shocks him. Neither of them is wet enough to keep a handjob from chafing, and the rhythm is too uneven for what he would ordinarily call pleasurable, but after tonight he doesn't want something easy. He suspects that his own hand is no better on Jonny, but Sidney's head hums too much with the need to get off for him to worry about niceties like rhythm or what kind of grip would be perfect. Jonny bites at his mouth and buries his face in Sidney's neck, pumping his hips into the harsh, furious strokes on his cock. Sidney returns the motion so that they're restless against each other, gritting teeth and straining for some sort of release. He thrusts up again, grunts against Jonny's mouth, and comes.

Jonny's hand doesn't stop moving, jerking him through it, and when the roughness starts to hurt, Sidney throws him off to the side. Jonny shoves Sidney's hand away and strokes himself, four hard tugs until he's coming too. They lie there side by side, both panting up at the ceiling. They still haven't managed to get completely on the bed, knees hanging over the edge, and even though it's not precisely comfortable, Sidney contemplates not moving and just falling asleep right there. He'd probably regret it in the morning.

A little convincing is required to get Jonny to climb up with him to where there are pillows, but when they flop down again, Sidney decides that the extra effort was worth it. Adrenaline crash and an orgasm is a hell of a sleep aid, and they drift off with the lights still on, ten feet to the wall too far to move to bother with the switch.

In the morning Jonny catches his eye in the mirror. "Last night. Sorry if I --."

"Nah," Sidney interrupts and waves his razor dismissively. "It's fine."

A pause.

"We won," Sidney says. There's little of the frustration of the night before, most of the jittering anxiety melted away with sleep into a settled acceptance.

Jonny nods, and that's the end of it.

*

He reaches for his sticks off the rack on the wall, then realizes that the rasping sound on his right is Eric, already using the hand saw to cut one of his own sticks down to size. Sidney stands behind him to get in line. The blowtorch and glue stick are on the table to the side, so Sidney picks them up, twirling the glue stick aimlessly in his fingers until Eric turns around and they wordlessly exchange positions, Eric taking the torch and glue, and Sidney wedging a stick into the vice to cut.

When he's finished with the saw and has glued his stick caps back in place, Sidney heads back into the dressing room to finish prepping. The noises are familiar and sound like home: the soft rasp of Marty and Lu rubbing silicone into their pads to buff out the streaks, seated together side-by-side on the floor, both their faces pictures of quiet contemplation; snickering laughter from Donut and Perry on the other end of the benches, in a conversation that Sidney can't quite make out; Keith leaning lazily against Seabrook with eyes half-lidded and weary, watching as Seabs wraps sticks; the rhythmic _skritch skritch_ of tape unrolling; short snaps and scuffs of teammates fastening buckles or velcro on gear. Sidney sits down at the stall with his name placard on it and reaches above himself for his tape, wrapping methodically in circles to form a knot at the top, then down the shaft for a grip, then the toe and back to the heel of the shaft. He's halfway through with his second stick when Toews sits down beside him and goes to work on his own sticks, the acidic smell of adhesive rising from their tape, fingers sticky with blade wax.

There is a certain comfort in these rituals. Even though it's boiling in Sidney's gut that tomorrow he will play the biggest game of his life, the pre-practice routines are still the same. Nerves don't change them, the magnitude of the game doesn't change them, the names or skills of his teammates don't change them.

When he's content with the wrap on his sticks, Sidney finishes getting dressed -- socks, tape on the socks, tape on his finger where Hossa hit him with the slapper yesterday, deoderizer spray for his gloves and pads and inside his skates, lace up the skates then tape the laces -- and after all is done he looks up to watch the rest of the room. The Sharks line are crowded together, handing the deoderizer can back and forth between each other, Thorts testing Marleau's shoulderpad for cracks. Keith stands and wanders over to speak to Toews, who looks up and chews on his mouthguard while he listens. Niedermayer is already kitted out and watches the whole room with the proprietary air of a captain whose men are doing their jobs. None of the coaches are in yet, so it's just them. Team Canada gearing up for battle.

When Babcock steps through the door, the quiet and relaxed air of the room changes. It's subtle but unmistakable to Sidney, who tends to notice such things with a long habit of monitoring his team's mood: everyone tenses a hair, and the reassuring routines of preparation are finished quickly so that everyone is intent by the time Babcock reaches the white boards. "So. America," he says.

Off to Sidney's right, Iggy nods.

"We know what they're bringing, and we know what we can do," continues Babcock. "We tried a few different things in the third yesterday, obviously it didn't work, so for practice today and the game tomorrow, expect to go back to what we started the Slovakia game with. Same lines, and you'll be looking at the same system, so about the same amount of ice time. Crosby and Sharks scoring, Toews checking, Getzlaf grind. We've got the ice for a short no-contact skate this afternoon and video after that, I'll remind you again when we get done this morning." A moment at the whiteboard to sketch out lines and he turns back to the room at large. "We've got a lot of guys in this room who've been in big games before. You guys know what this is going to be like. The goal for today is to get better. Do that, and winning will take care of itself."

Niedermayer levers himself to his feet with his stick. "Two more days," he says. "After today and tomorrow, nothing we can do will matter. Let's make today count." He takes a step toward the door, and the rest of them rise to follow. Sidney is the first in line, not only because it's his duty as an alt captain, but because the ice is the only thing that will wipe away the memory of the last minutes against Slovakia. When he steps onto that clean sheet of ice -- smooth and unmarked, peaceful -- Sidney truly believes they are capable of anything.

*

They eat supper together by unspoken agreement after the video session that afternoon. There's no restaurant booked, nothing scheduled, but without a word of planning the whole team treks over to the cafeteria together.

Sidney doesn't realize until they step into the food court exactly what it means that they are the only athletes at the entire Games still competing. Even curling finished earlier in the day. Since they've come straight from practice, many of them are in jerseys and a hush falls as soon as Niedermayer finishes giving his jacket to the coat room and steps through the credentials check into the cafeteria proper. Sidney is next, and for the first time ever, the room doesn't buzz with noise. When Toews and Weber follow him, the silence becomes nigh absolute. No one asks them for autographs as they cross the room, and seats mysteriously open up at the longest table in the room until there are enough for the entire team to reserve its spot and sit together. The noise level resumes a low hum when they split up to go get food, leaving Bergie, Nash, Pronger, and Thornton to save their spots.

The odd deference continues in line for food. ''Prenez ma place dans la ligne," says a delicate-looking man who wears a hoodie with the Swiss cross on it.

Sidney's French is rusty, but Jonny translates for him and for Seabs, who has followed them to the queue for the steak station. "He says that we can have his spot in line." Sidney frowns, not wanting to be treated as special or a diva, and Jonny catches the look with a raised eyebrow and nods.

"Merci, mais ce n'est pas nécessaire," Jonny says, then for Seabrook's benefit, "I told him he didn't need to do that."

"Oh," says Seabs, just as the Swiss man says. "Non, j'insiste." He smiles, dark hair falling into his face. "Vous savez, nous vous avons presque battu dans la ronde préliminaire."

Jonny laughs. "Ne soyez pas offensez, mais nous sommes très heureux que vous n'ayez pas gagné ce match."

"Vous et le reste de votre pays! Maintenant, j'espère que vous gagnerez contre les Etats-Unis depuis qu'ils ont éliminé notre équipe. Venez, entrez içi.'" The Swiss man gestures again for them to pass him, just as the woman standing beside him says, "S'il vous plaît, ce n'est pas la peine."

Jonny gives them another, "Merci," then shrugs and jerks his head to lead Sidney and Seabs past the Swiss group to the front of the line, where the grill cook takes their orders. "What was that all about?" Seabrook asks.

Jonny frowns at one of the tines on his fork and bends it straighter. "They insisted that we pass them in the line. He seemed pleased that the Swiss team had almost beaten us in prelims, and I told him we were pretty happy that they didn't. Now he wants us to beat the Americans since it was USA who took them out of the tournament."

"Oh."

Sidney himself had been able to follow most of the conversation, though his own French is nowhere near as smooth or fast as Jonny's. Still, as he spoons up mashed potatoes and green beans onto his plate, waiting for his steak to finish cooking, Sidney wonders how many other countries want for Canada to win. He'd known throughout the tournament that the team carried the hopes of all his countrymen, but it never occurred to him that there might be other countries as well, people around the world who were counting on him and his teammates to pull off the gold. It's a sobering thought.

When they get back to the table, Sidney takes Nash's seat so that Rick can go get food. Seabrook sits down next to Keith and elbows him in the gut, then spoons some of his broccoli off onto Keith's plate, taking a portion of Keith's carrots for himself. Iggy sits down on Sidney's other side, and he glances curiously at Iggy's plate. "Thai?"

"Vietnamese, but you were close."

"I just wanted something normal," says Sidney. "I did have Moroccan yesterday, that was good."

"Normal." Iggy is watching him out of the corner of his eye as he spoons up noodles and beef from his soup.

"Yeah. When I'm home I usually do either steak or salmon the night before a game, so I figured I'd stick with that."

Iggy nods with his mouth full, and swallows before saying, "Nerves?"

"Yeah."

That's the most that they talk about it for the rest of dinner. The whole team seems subdued, quieter, but they laugh at Nash's jokes, pick on Getzy for his hair, and Sidney fends off barbs about his inability to grow a playoff beard. With the medal game looming on the horizon, the playoffs seem very far away. When they've finished eating, they stay around the table just talking, Nieds and Thornton telling stories from previous Olympics that make Marty blush. Iggy joins in for the tale of a prank on Gretzky during the Salt Lake Games that nearly got him benched for the whole of the elimination tournament. Sidney listens, rapt, and doesn't talk much. He notices Doughty, Seabrook, and Weber doing likewise; the young guns learning from their elders. There isn't much time left for this camaraderie -- in another day or two they'll all be on planes again and back to different teams. The bubble of isolation they've all been living in will burst and the season will resume, as though the Games were some strange dreamspace, forbidden to touch the reality of the NHL. Sidney finds that he will miss this, even if it's only been two weeks in the making.

It's 9 p.m. by the time they're ready to leave, and Sidney walks with the team back to Canada House, his shoulder bumping companionably against Jonny beside him. Mike Richards is on Jonny's other side, and the two of them are engrossed in a conversation about the finer points of Kane's game and how to contain him, but Sidney finds he doesn't mind that he's being ignored. The weather has turned cold again and yesterday's rain is now snow, thick enough to muffle the sounds of celebrations around the Village. He takes a deep breath, cold enough to sting in his lungs, and holds it until the sting turns to a burn. Then he releases the air and watches the steam disperse, feeling the tension that has been building in his shoulders release briefly. One way or another, it will be over tomorrow. By Monday, the team and the snow and the electric crowds will all be one more memory.

*

"Are you awake?" whispers Jonny from the other bed.

Sidney is, in fact, awake. He's been lying awake for nearly an hour and a half, after the two of them shrugged off the rest of the team's plan to play ping-pong into the wee hours of the morning in favor of trying to rest. So far, it's not working. The nerves won't let him settle down; his mind keeps straying to practice that morning, to what he knows of the American players, to the video session in the afternoon and the coaches' analysis of Parise on the power play. The nerves and the thinking aren't helping him sleep, though.

"Yeah, I'm awake." Sidney stares at the ceiling -- _Kane likes it along the half-boards, force him deep to the corners if you can but watch him if he gets behind the net_ \-- and isn't terribly surprised when Jonny gets out of his own bed to climb beside Sidney and flop down on his stomach. They hadn't mentioned anything to each other about the sleeping arrangements tonight, but Sidney isn't a good enough liar to pretend that he's unhappy now that Jonny is closer.

"I'm going to be terrible tommorow," Jonny whispers, his nose against Sidney's bicep. "There's no way I'm getting any sleep."

"You nervous too?"

"Yeah."

"You'll be fine."

Jonny snorts as though the words aren't convincing him any more than Sidney is convincing himself. "Wonder if Nieds or Iggy will be able to sleep tonight?"

Sidney hums. "They've both done this so often they could probably play the entire damn tournament in their sleep."

For a while they both are quiet, listening to each other breathe, then Jonny says, "My cousin sent me a text message while we were at dinner. She's six."

"What'd she say?"

"That we had better win so that she can get a puppy. My aunt told her she could have a puppy if we win the fucking game."

"Jesus," says Sidney.

"Yeah."

"I hope your six-year-old cousin didn't use 'fucking' in the text message."

Jonny laughs. "No. But still, it's so --." His voice goes quieter, more a hum or a whisper than real words, and Sidney can feel him shudder where they're pressed side-by-side. Sidney hesitates for a moment, then gives in to his impulse and with a few pushes and tugs of shoulders and hips, he turns Jonny over onto his back and pulls his t-shirt off.

"Do you remember Worlds, the year it was in Québec?" Sidney asks, finding the World Championship scar by touch, letting his fingers press in enough not to be ticklish.

"Yeah."

"Was it this bad?"

"No." They both sigh, and Sidney rubs his nose and chin against the nearest stretch of Jonny's arm. "I mean, there was some pressure, sure, but not like this. It wasn't the Olympics." His voice rumbles scratchy in his chest, and Sidney moves a hand higher to wrap against Jonny's throat, where he can feel the vibrations most strongly.

"No puppies on the line?"

A snort of laughter. "No." Sidney's thumb traces circles under the hinge of his jaw. There isn't really any hair there, the skin soft and smooth and easy to stroke. Jonny raises his chin to give more room for Sidney's exploratory touches.

"My dad really wants this one," Sidney confesses. "It's sort of weird. Even when we got the Cup last year, I knew he wanted me to win, but I knew he wanted the win because it would make me happy. With this one..." He drifts off into silence and reaches to graze Jonny's ear, trace the shell, then moves his hand back to wrap again around Jonny's neck. His thumb is pressed against the pulse on one side and his fingers against the pulse point on the other, just light pressure, enough to feel the blood pumping against the touch. "With this one it's more, because he wants it for himself too, you know, for him and Canada. Mom's the same way."

Jonny makes a noise of agreement, and Sidney enjoys the way it quivers through his Adam's apple. For another second they're quiet, then Sidney shifts again and kisses him. Jonny allows it, kisses back with little urgency, easy. With a soft exhalation into the mouth below his, Sidney shifts so that he can be on top, their thighs tangled and Jonny solid and muscular beneath him. There's a contented low noise that might have come from either of them, and Jonny slips a hand around to cover the small of Sidney's back in a gesture that sends goosebumps across his shoulders. Jonny's hair is still damp from the shower where Sidney touches it.

Jonny leans up into his mouth and, more by instinct than by conscious decision, Sidney licks out at the soft lips beneath him. There's a startled noise but Jonny opens for him, lets Sidney explore with his tongue. Certain kisses draw gutteral noises or throaty grunts, and Sidney presses down more with his hand to feel them. This gets him a swift inhalation through Jonny's nose, and a hand wrapped around his wrist, but not to pull him away. It's just touch, very light touch at that, so Sidney doesn't move, keeps his hand where he can feel every noise made, every slight movement of Jonny's mouth or jaw, every breath he draws.

When Sidney leans forward to touch their foreheads together, Jonny murmurs, "You could choke me like this."

"I won't."

"I know." There's no question there, only steady assurance, and though it flushes Sidney's chest with warmth, there's a pause that threatens to stretch out to awkwardness. "Babcock would kill you," Jonny says at last. The thought makes them both laugh.

Slow shifts of hips rub their whole bodies together, not enough for anything more than a melting, gentle arousal. They could do this all night, just forget about nerves and the game and tomorrow, stay slow and heated. Sidney lets himself float on the feeling.

At last, Jonny reaches up and tugs the hand that had been in his hair down between their bodies. "Touch me," he says. Sidney kisses him deep and hungrier.

"You want these off?" Sidney cups the shape of his cock through his pants.

"Yeah. Here, can I --?"

"Yes," says Sidney and reaches out again to touch.

Afterwards, Jonny lies quiet and stares up at the ceiling. Sidney stares at Jonny, unable to see the scars in the dark but cataloguing them in his head: Worlds, World Juniors, World U-17. He wonders where the Olympic scar will fit in, what it will look like, whether the lines will be thick or thin. When he returns to Pittsburgh, he'll put his medal -- whichever one they win -- in the big trophy case beside the fireplace in Mario's house, but he likes the idea that Jonny will carry his most personal sign of their Games with him where ever he goes. Maybe when Sidney gets home he'll get a tattoo, someplace inconspicuous, just something that will go with him all the time.

First they have to win, though. Sidney's mind drifts to the video session from that afternoon, all about what to expect from the American system: powerplay shooters are usually Rafalski from the top of the near circle or Kane from the far half-boards, the book on Parise is watch for odd man breaks down the far side, Ryan Whitney doesn't see much ice time so take advantage of the fact that he's slow while he's out there.

The clock on the bedside table flashes twenty minutes gone by when Jonny says, "Scouting on Miller is mainly screens and distractions." Sidney jumps at the words, unexpected after so much silence. His heart rate is still returning to normal as Jonny continues, "Shoot low corners for pad rebounds, and if you're close in try to roof it if he goes down blocker side because he kicks up slower on blocker than glove." 

Sidney takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. "Rafalski's the priority on the backcheck if the D are behind the blueline, Parise and Malone and Drury are priority if the D are forward." He imagines Babcock's voice in the darkened dressing room, the laser pointer dancing across the video screen.

Jonny's voice at his side is contemplative. "Miller's not a puckhandler, so footspeed on the forecheck, look to crash him if he goes back for it."

The clock shows 4 a.m. when Sidney finally drifts off to the sound of Jonny thinking out loud about how to get into Kane's head. They have to be up for breakfast by 8 a.m. They have less than eight hours until the game.

*

A soccer ball ricochets off the far wall of the concrete corridor beneath the stands of Canada Hockey Place with a thud that no one can hear. There's still an hour and a half to go until puck drop at noon, but the crowds outside the arena are already 10,000 strong and cheering. The outdoor projection screens are replaying the telecast of the Canada-Russia game, and within the building, the noise is enough to require them all to speak in low shouts.

"Heater, that's on you," says Nash, and Sidney watches Heatley jog off to retrieve the errant ball. Behind their circle and further down the hall, well out of range of the soccer group, Lu is skipping rope, headphones in his ears, locked away in his own little world. The crowd noise from outside likewise drowns out the rhythmic slap of his gym shoes on concrete or the slap of the rope. Sidney bounces on his toes, waiting while Heatley hustles back to the group.

Around them, the underbelly of the arena smells like popcorn, fried dough, and the sweat that's beginning to form across their shoulders from the nerves and their warmups. The atmosphere reminds him of every other game he's played for the last four years, helping to slightly calm the buzzing of nerves in his stomach.

"Heads up," Heater yells, and knees the ball up across to Boyle, who flails to catch it back up with an ankle, sending it left to Doughty. Sidney waits and bounces some more on his toes, then manages to knee the ball to Weber with a "Hup," when it's his turn.

"Hey, watch --," Flower says, before the ball flies wide to hit the wall and Boyle is forced to make a heroic save on the deflection to keep it in the circle.

"Fucking watch it, Flower." Dropping the ball or sending it down the hall are the cardinal sins in this game.

"Yeah man, no coordination." Nash flips the ball expertly to Sidney, who returns it just as neatly.

"Eh, fuck off," Flower says good-naturedly, and deliberately sends the ball at Nash's head the next time it comes to him.

"Hey!"

"Quit your bitching."

"Bitching my ass." Nash takes a couple steps into the center of the circle, dodges the flying ball, and takes a playful swipe at Flower, who darts to the side with the lanky grace that only goalies manage. It leaves enough space in the circle for Nash to settle into a spot beside him, where they can elbow each other whenever the ball comes near in a try to make the other miss. The rest of the circle gradually readjusts until everyone is evenly spaced again, and Sidney finds himself kicking balls to Flower just to watch him avoid Nash's attempts to trip him as he returns the kick.

"Does Nasher have his panties in a wad?" Heatley laughs.

"Play nice, kids." This from a grinning Iggy, who's just wandered up to join the game. Nash kicks the ball at him and Iggy parries easily.

It feels natural, all of them together like this, getting limbered up. Aside from the noise overhead and the constant fission of nerves along his spine, it could be any other game. They feel like a team; they felt like a team yesterday on the ice in practice.

Niedermayer jogs up. "Time," he says, which means that the next person to touch the ball grabs it instead of kicking it, and they all trot back to the dressing room for the pre-game coaches' meeting. Just like any other team. Like any other game.

Lemaire is already at the whiteboard, which is covered in a mess of line combinations, match-up plans, and systems. It's Babcock and Yzerman who turn to speak to them, though, while Lemaire is still writing.

"It's a little late in the tournament to be making major changes, so we won't," says Babcock, gesturing at the whiteboard. "We'll just execute on what we've already got. You guys know this stuff, just check your lines for the opening faceoff before we head out." He presses his lips together, takes a moment to make eye contact around the room. "I need your best out there, today. Nobody takes a shift off, we can't afford it. You all know what we're up against, and you all know what that American team can do." A snort goes round the room, all of them remembering the deafening silence after the loss, barely a week ago. Around them, the building quivers with sound -- the noise of expectations, of celebrations pent up and waiting. "You all know what's at stake here, there's not much more I can say about it." Babcock leans back against the white board and crosses his arms over his chest, still watching them all carefully.

Yzerman takes a step toward the front of the room, motion drawing all eyes. "We don't have any more time to waste on this. We know as a team how good we are and we haven’t reached that limit yet," he says quietly, and despite the cheering overhead, it doesn't have to be loud. No one in the room is moving, all of them for once on the same page, focused and still.

"We didn't play this far to let it go," says Sidney, and Niedermayer glances over at him, nods. At his side, Toews nods as well and elbows him gently in agreement.

"Let's get out there and prove it," says Nieds.

"We've got one more game to take this thing," Babcock says, "So dig a little deeper, guys." He jerks his head towards the door, where Lu leads them out onto the ice to go to work. Sidney takes a deep breath, stands, and follows, trying to convince the raw feeling in his stomach that they can play like champions.

*

Sidney collapses to the bench, just off a shift and panting. He's in the process of reaching for the smelling salts when the puck sails over his head to land in the crowd. He glances up to the ice to see Nash wheeling back past the bench toward their own zone. The faceoff will be close to Lu, then. From out of the corner of one eye, amid all the motion in the crowd, Sidney catches a glimpse of Babcock waving his clipboard like a madman toward the ice. He holds the smelling salts up to his nose and takes a whiff that makes his eyes stutter shut with the acrid burn, but the salts do their work and open his lungs with a gasp, so that he barely hears the sound of the whistle blowing over the heaving rush of his own breath.

Babcock has called a timeout for Team Canada.

When Sidney opens his eyes again and looks up, the clock reads :54.8 remaining. The score reads 2-1, Canada's lead. They're fifty-five seconds from a gold medal.

Around them, the crowd is on its feet, not a single person still sitting. The constant motion through the stands -- people jumping against the glass, people shifting to try and see, people waving towels or lifting signs -- makes the whole building seem fluid around them, as though the puck and the team and the still ice are the only solid things in the midst of massive flux.

The plan, according to Lemaire's whiteboard, is simple: get the puck off the faceoff, dump it deep in the Americans' zone, and keep it there for as long as humanly possible or fifty-five seconds, whichever comes first. Fifty-five seconds to go. "Defensive faceoff. Getzy, you take the draw. Toews, right. Nash, left. Hard shifts, people."

Jonny shoots Sidney a look as they skate out to hunker down at the circle. It doesn't make sense for Getzlaf to take the faceoff, he's never practiced it. Jonny is the defensive faceoff specialist, and Sidney specializes in offensive zone draws. For what might well be the most important draw of the game, one of the two of them should be on the dot. Getzy hasn't even practiced with Jonny or Nasher in the last week, it's always been Richards on the right, Toews at center. Sidney throws a worried glance at Babcock, whose face is impassive. Behind him, the crowd surges and crests against the glass, banging fists and pressing themselves against the panes to get closer to the ice.

The ref leans over and the building holds its breath. Getzy doesn't win the draw.

"Fuck," Keith says from Sidney's right, banging his stick hard against the boards in disgust. The scramble in the zone makes Sidney's stomach turn; for the next fifty seconds, anywhere behind their blue line is too close for comfort, there are too many things that could go wrong.

Toews recovers the puck from Pavelski and dumps it past the red line, but the surge of relief is cut short when the Americans get it back almost immediately and Stastny throws a slow shot from the point at Luongo, who gives up the rebound back towards center ice. The puck skitters off a stick and then someone's skate to end up behind the net, with Luongo shifting frantically post to post, trying to figure out where the next shot could come from. "Left," screams Sidney as hard as he can, hoping to be heard over the bedlam of the crowd. His voice is cracked and painful from yelling at the top of his lungs all game long. The other players on the bench take up the cry, "Left, Lu. Left."

The puck does go into the left corner, just as Luongo settles against the post. Getzlaf isn't fast enough to the boards to keep the American forward from shunting it back to the middle. There's a flash of puck on Kane's stick, but after that Sidney can't see, there are too many people in front of the goal, frantic action and too many skates for a certain view of the biscuit.

He's sure enough that the puck is headed toward the crease to yell, "Clear it! Clear --," but the rest of his words are drowned out by the stunning buzz of a goal siren.

The crowd goes insane. Sidney feels diminished and helpless behind the boards instead of on the ice as the former shift of motion around them turns into a storm, equal parts boos and cheers, loud enough that the second airhorn blast of the goal siren is inaudible above the fury. He turns to meet Keith's eyes and winces at the shattered expression on his face; Sidney wonders if his own face looks so devastated. It's unreal, doesn't seem like it should be possible, but the clamor of the crowd around him and slump of his teammates' shoulders bring it all crashing down to reality.

With :24 on the clock, the game is tied. Overtime.


	6. Chapter 6

"Somebody's got to be the hero," Babcock shouts down at the four skaters poised to hop the boards.

The bench creaks and jostles beneath Sidney when Heater throws himself down and immediately puts his head between his legs to take deep, heavy breaths. Sidney knows the feeling; he's felt like puking ever since they stepped out of the locker room to airhorns and cheers so loud his teeth chattered from the sheer force of the sound. The other end of the bench tremors too; it's a full change -- forwards and defense -- so the combined weights of Toews, Nash, Boyle, and Pronger are suddenly gone. Sidney dutifully shifts down to fill the holes.

Staal and Richards are also off the bench, though they aren't yet over the boards. Instead they balance themselves on the boards to sit, ready to kick off and make the change just a little bit faster the next time the forwards get too exhausted to skate full steam. Overtime means the long change, and zero room to be stupid or slow.

Sidney checks the tape on his laces and looks up just in time to see Nash completely obliterate Ryan Callahan. He should have a look, there's a shot there. Sidney bangs his stick against the boards in encouragement, feels players down the bench do the same. "Shoot it," Pronger screams from near the top of the circle, "Shoot it Nasher!"

Miller gets a pad in the way or Nash doesn't shoot high enough or maybe the hockey gods just hate Canada tonight -- Sidney can't quite see well enough from his vantage point to tell which, but the crowd's collective "Aw!" is louder than the goal siren would have been. The air in his lungs tastes dry and fragile with tiny ice particles. There are too many bodies in the way for him to see the action clearly from the bench angle. Sidney checks the jumbotron to follow the play and in giant glowing pixels watches Toews almost manage another swipe at it, so close, before the Americans take the puck back and the chance is lost.

Skates slice, pivot, slice again in a battle at the blue line, and when Kane snaps the biscuit to his stick, Sidney leans forward with a lurch, elbows resting on the boards and gloves clasped in front of him as though in prayer. Kane cuts across to avoid Pronger -- so fast, too fast for the forwards to get back and catch him -- but Boyle manages to make the save and poke the puck away to Toews, who steps through the neutral zone and pushes it deep. Sidney feels his heart rate drop marginally. At least it's back out of their zone and headed up ice in the right direction. He can feel the boards quiver under his forearms as though they agree with his relief, the result of Eric and Richie kicking off to change.

"Water," yells Sidney and tosses the bottle in front of himself to the exhausted forwards just off the ice. Nash douses himself in the face, takes a whiff of the smelling salts, then leans back and punches Babcock in the thigh, beckoning him to lean down and listen.

"They're letting us take the point shots," Babcock shouts when he straightens, straining to be heard all the way down the bench over the roar of the crowd. His voice sounds as hoarse as Sidney's own. "Letting Miller handle top of the circles, you've got to get it in closer to get by him." Sidney nods and raises a glove to show he heard. "D, jump in to the point if you can. Make them think there's a chance of a shot, you'll draw off room to get the forwards closer."

"Shit!" Marty was one of the few watching the ice instead of Babcock, but his yell is clearly audible even all the way on the other end. All heads snap toward the action on the ice.

Pavelski is in deep, only Niedermayer between him and the goal. Sticks catch, swipe at skates and puck alike. Nieds manages to get the puck to his skate and kicks it away to his stick, then dips behind the net to recompose the rush. At the half-boards, Sidney expects a mid-range pass to Richards, who is prowling the neutral zone, but instead Niedermayer tries to throw the puck across to Weber. Pavelski is there, a perfect interception, and Sidney's heart stops again because there are no defenders any more, it's a one-on-one with the goalie.

"Kid," yells Babcock, just as Sidney whispers, "Please," because even if the next shift is his, it may not matter if this shot goes in.

"Lu!" choruses the crowd in a deep bass howl, and mercifully there are no lights, no sirens. Lu gathers the puck close, and Sidney has never been so glad in his life that they didn't see a rebound. Nieds circles back once more to pull the puck up for Canada.

"Kid!" Babcock screams again, in case he hadn't heard it in the previous pandemonium, so Sidney swings a leg over the boards to show he's ready. Iggy follows suit. It's only three seconds more and the puck is still in the far corner of their own zone when Sidney pushes off as hard as the tired muscles in his legs will let him, trying to get to the puck before the Americans.

Get in close is the mantra. Defense threaten from points, forwards get in close as they can and take the shot. It's in his head as he races Langenbrunner across the ice, momentum in his push off the boards putting him two steps ahead when he reaches the pass that Nieds had thrown into the neutral zone. Parise and the two defenders are still in front of him. He'll have to fight through at least two of them to have a chance.

It's less than a stride after he reaches the puck that he makes the decision: go for the defenders, try and out-dangle them. He heads straight for Suter, full speed, but Suter doesn't back down. Rafalski cuts over to help his partner out, and Sidney faces them both in a screen between him and the goal. "Screens," he thinks, hearing Jonny's voice from last night in his head. "Scouting on Miller is screens and distractions. Low pads for rebounds, roof it blocker side." Sidney's shot goes through the two defenders' skates, and he hopes it's enough.

By the time he's untangled enough from Rafalski to see what's going on, it's clear that there's no goal. The puck is off in the corner, and Sidney is the first to arrive, smashing his forearm into the glass with a brief rocket of pain, and kicking the puck up to Iggy, who's managed to get down to support him. Iggy misses the pass and heads towards the corner, so Sidney gives chase to the puck, which hits the ref's skates and slows down. Sidney circles back to pass it to Iggy, then glances over his shoulder. Pavelski didn't realize that the puck hit the ref. He'd overshot the momentum, for now, Sidney's defender is nowhere near between him, the puck, or the goal.

"Iggy!" Sidney shouts, giving all the force that his voice has left to the words, begging for the chance and hoping he'll be heard above the crowd. The pass comes his way and it's only a movement to settle and a short sweep to shoot -- blocker side, so he aims for as much air as he can get in the short space -- before his momentum carries him around behind the net.

Sidney can't see where the puck went, whether or not it went in, but in the end he doesn't need to. The crowd sees for him. The first hint Sidney gets that they've won is when he sees a woman in a Niedermayer jersey jump up and plaster herself to the glass, arms in the air.

The sirens sound; he can't hear them through the noise.

Sidney doesn't even reach the corner before Nieds and Weber catch up to him, slamming him back against the glass with a teeth-jarring rattle when they hug him. Iggy is next, then Nasher and Thorns and Perry.

The whole team is upon him, all their weight, whacking heads and arms and shoulders, shouting over and over, "We won, we won!" as though saying the words will make this feeling any less surreal. Sidney's whole body feels weightless, and it's not just because he's pinned so hard against the glass that his skates no longer touch the ice. It's as though someone injected helium directly into his bloodstream and now he would float away if it weren't for the hugs and pats and grabs holding him down.

They just won the gold medal -- _he_ just won the gold medal -- and there's pride, yes, and euphoria and disbelief and fulfillment and a hundred other once-in-a-lifetime emotions, but the main thing that he's feeling is _relief_.

He cries when they sing _O Canada_ together.

*

Sidney deliberately leaves the doors to the balcony open by about a foot, allowing the snow to swirl inside. The heat in the room is turned up full blast, which keeps the temperature comfortable, with an occasional shiver when the wind gusts. Outside, the streets of the Village are finally quiet, though noise filters in faint from the ongoing party in the city across the bay. The elation of having their bus pull out of the GM Place parking lot to the greeting of 100,000 people cheering for them still hasn't worn off.

It's 4 a.m on Monday and Sidney is watching Jonny. They're both still wearing their medals; Sidney doubts he'll take his off until he gets back to Pittsburgh, and maybe not even then. Jonny is still awake and lying on his back in the middle of his bed, hands folded over his stomach, the lamp still on. He's wearing the t-shirt.

"Where will you put it?" Sidney asks.

"The medal? Maybe on my wall. Frame it or something."

"The scar."

For a long time, Jonny remains still, and Sidney wonders if he intends to answer. Outside, he can hear the distant pop of fireworks over the bay. Jonny's toes curl, flex out, then relax.

"Do you want to see?"

Sidney squeezes in a fast breath through his nose. There's no way Jonny's done it already, there's been no time. They've only been back in the room for an hour, and Sidney's been watching him for forty-five minutes of that time. "Sure," says Sidney, and hopes his voice is steady enough not to betray how much it frightens him that Jonny might have done this hastily.

"Okay." Jonny sits up, looking straight ahead instead of at Sidney, then tucks the medal down into his shirt and pulls the shirt off over his head, so that the medal hangs flat against his bare chest. When he lays back again, Sidney can see what he meant: there's a stark black outline on his skin, drawn in marker. It's a figure of the Rings, located a few inches below the captain's C. Sidney moves over to sit down beside him and touches the black lines. They're perfectly drawn; Jonny must have used a pattern or a stencil.

"I sort of thought you'd put it here," Sidney says at last, reaching across to lay his palm on the opposite side of Jonny's chest, in a place that would be the mirror image of the C. On one side there's the Captain's crest and soon to be the Rings, but the other side is completely unmarked, the skin clear and startlingly smooth in comparison to the rest of his chest.

Jonny bites his lip. "I'm saving that spot. For the Cup, one day. Until then, it reminds me that there's still a goal."

Sidney nods, understanding. His hand drifts back until it encounters the smooth blue fabric of the ribbon, then down to reach the medal itself. The gold is skin-warm and smooth, lying in the dip of Jonny's sternum. Curious fingers touch the smaller emblem on the medal -- five circles, entertwined -- before touching its larger counterpart again on Jonny's skin. He can feel Jonny studying him, watching his face carefully.

"I have a favor to ask," says Jonny slowly, his hand coming up to cover Sidney's and press it flat against the ink on his chest.

"Yes?"

"I was wondering --," he trails off, wets his lips, swallows, and Sidney looks up to meet his eyes in question. "I was wondering if you would do the Rings for me."

Sidney's whole body goes tense. Jonny must be able to feel it because he tightens his grip on Sidney's hand to keep it against himself. "What do you mean?" Sidney asks carefully.

Jonny wets his lips again and the silence stretches interminably, broken only by the fireworks. "Make the scar."

"You want me to --."

"Yes."

He still can't quite believe what he's hearing. "You want me to cut you."

"Yes." Barely audible.

"Why?"

"To remember."

Sidney's first instinct is revulsion. He's never deliberately cut anyone in his life. Even if he's beginning to understand why Jonny does this -- why sometimes it's comforting to be able to look and touch and remember a history of good moments -- he has never wanted to be the kind of person who would deliberately hurt someone who he considers a friend and a teammate and more, who understands him as well as Jonny.

He's about to tug his hand away and stand up, move back, when Jonny says, "Please. I want to remember everything," and suddenly Sidney isn't sure they're talking about hockey anymore. Which, yes, they're talking about hockey, but they're also talking about -- oh. Now it makes sense why in Jonny's mind it should be Sidney who carves the scar. He isn't sure that he wants to do it, isn't sure that he _could_ do it if he wanted to, but now he understands why Jonny would ask. And in some dark part of himself, Sidney likes the idea that Jonny would think of him whenever he saw a mirror or brushed the Rings in the shower; Jonny would remember not just the win but him specifically.

"I don't know if I can," he says truthfully.

"That's not no." Jonny's expression melts slowly from shuttered and wary to vulnerable.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You know that I'll do it myself if you choose not to. You won't hurt me any more than I'd be hurting otherwise. And I'm asking you to do this, I want it."

"Yeah, but if you did the cuts yourself you'd know whether it was too deep, I don't have any way of --."

"Sidney," Jonny interrupts, "I'll tell you. I'm going to be here, I'll tell you if it's too much or too light. I'm not going to let you do anything wrong." He squeezes Sidney's hand on his chest, holds on tight.

For a long time, they listen to each other breathe. The fireworks die away and the only noises are the flap of the wind when it flutters the curtains and occasional whoops from drunken passersby. Sidney's thoughts trace themselves in rings, endless loops of can't-maybe-want-shouldn't-can't. The strokes against the back of his hand from Jonny's thumb are comforting, calming. When he realizes that it's the third time he's had the same internal argument with himself, Sidney gives up.

"I'll try." Jonny's grin makes the trepidation almost worth it. "I can't say that I'll definitely be able to do it, but I'll try."

Jonny tugs him down for a kiss that goes slower and longer than Sidney expected. When he decides he wants more skin, Jonny's pants come off easily. Neither of them offer to remove the medals. After long enough that he's beginning to wonder if they can just forget the whole thing, Jonny pushes him off and sits up. "Stay here. And get your pants off."

Sidney's obedience is rewarded when Jonny comes back from the bathroom with a stack of towels and what looks like his shaving kit. One towel gets spread out in the center of the bed, another on top of it. The shaving kit gets handed to Sidney, who opens it and examines the contents. In addition to the usual toothbrush, razor and deoderant on one side, there's a pack of alcohol wipes, a roll of gauze, adhesive tape, and -- "Jesus," Sidney whispers as he pulls out a scalpel, sealed inside a plastic pouch marked 'sterile'.

Jonny looks up from his towel preparations. "You can get them off the internet."

"Jesus."

Jonny lays back down on top of the towels and opens the package of alcohol wipes. "You might want to do your hands," he suggests, pushing the wipes toward Sidney, who scrubs his hands harder than necessary while Jonny rubs a wipe over the area marked with the Rings. The gauze and tape are pulled out and placed at Jonny's side for later use. Sidney feels like he ought to do something else, more preparations, find a way to delay so that Jonny will see what a bad idea this probably is, but he can think of nothing else that needs to get done.

Sidney picks up the package with the scalpel again. "Now?" he asks, and opens it after he receives a nod in return. The metal handle feels thin and cold in his hand. The blade itself is dull and unreflective, except for a few millimeters at the very edge which glint sharp in the lamplight. High school biology is the only other time he's held a scalpel, and comparing Jonny's warm, living form beside him to those cold, unfeeling frogs they'd worked on makes Sidney vaguely nauseous.

"Put your other hand on my stomach," Jonny says suddenly, and it startles Sidney enough that he nearly drops the knife. When he obeys, he can feel the rise-fall rhythm of breathing beneath tense muscles. "Go as slow as you need to. Just try and stay on the lines as much as you can so the circles turn out straight."

Sidney laughs, humorless, because even with all they've done in these weird two weeks, the idea of having this much power over Jonny's body borders on horrifying. "What if I do it crooked?"

"Then I'll think about how much your hands were shaking every time I look at it." Jonny grasps the wrist of the hand on that's resting on his stomach. "I trust you. I'll squeeze your wrist hard if I want you to stop."

Sidney takes a deep breath, swallows, and nods. When the scalpel gets within an inch of Jonny's side, his hands are trembling so badly he can see it. "Mine do that too," Jonny says in a low voice. "It'll feel more steady when it's resting against something."

Though it's less than an inch, it feels like an eternity of air between the blade and the first of the lines. Sidney's back is so tight with concentration that it feels like he could snap. Jonny is stone-still, eyes locked to Sidney's face. Just before the blade touches, Sidney looks up at him. "You're sure this is okay."

"Yes."

"You're sure."

Jonny presses his lips together. "I want you to cut me," he says clearly.

Sidney lowers the blade some more -- so slowly -- until he feels the very faint resistance of the blade resting on skin, not pressing down. "Stop me if it's bad." The words sound more like a plea than he'd intended. Jonny's thumb strokes the inside of his wrist in slow circles, a counterpoint to the wire-taut strain of his stomach muscles.

It takes less pressure than Sidney thought before blood wells against the blade. He freezes. "Too much?" His voice sounds like a croak past all the tension in his throat.

Jonny's voice is all breath, and Sidney realizes that he's trying not to move his chest when he talks. "About right. Little deeper." Sidney inhales slowly through his nose and continues, using the tip as much as he can instead of the flat of the blade and going very slowly, trying to trace the circles evenly. There isn't as much blood as he'd thought there'd be, thin trickles along the curves that the knife draws, but he's seen more staggering amounts of blood from getting hit by a puck in practice. When Jonny hasn't died or screamed or done anything else alarming after the first few seconds, Sidney feels the strangling tension easing a little in his neck and his hand steadies.

It takes concentration to do this, but the focus is on far more than just the black marker design over Jonny's ribs. Sidney becomes acutely aware of the rhythms of Jonny's inhalations, the speed of his heartbeat, the strain of trying to lie perfectly still. "It's okay," Sidney whispers distractedly as he begins the third ring. "Tell me if it hurts too much. I'll stop if you tell me to, don't let me push you too far."

"Trust you," Jonny whispers. Almost more frightening than the idea that he has this much control over Jonny's body is the knowledge that he _likes_ it. There's something heady and exhilarating about that much power, and about the idea that Jonny is giving it to him willingly. The fourth circle goes smoothly, and Sidney is almost surprised when he finishes. It didn't take as long as he'd thought.

"There," he says quietly, feeling almost reverent when he reaches out to touch the trickle of blood down Jonny's side. There really isn't so much. His fingers smear it over ribs and unmarked skin. Jonny takes a deep breath now that he can safely move his chest again, and the tug at the skin makes the bleeding a little faster, draws a low grunt from his throat.

"Hand me those," says Jonny, and makes grabby hands at the alcohol wipes until Sidney passes them over. He wipes his side off first, the finger prints that Sidney left and the little trails down to the towels. The towels themselves have only a few spots. Sidney doubts that it even soaked through to the second layer. After he's cleaned off the overspill, Jonny cleans the cuts themselves, hissing when the alcohol wipe touches the open wound.

"Hurts?" says Sidney, though he knows it does.

Jonny nods. He reaches for the gauze next, but Sidney catches his wrist.

"Wait." Jonny gives him a quizzical look.

"I just want to --," Sidney trails off, and reaches out to touch. He doesn't use any pressure, so that he isn't hurting Jonny, but his fingers are curious as they seek out the new lines, the places where the edges of the cut are already becoming raised and reddened. Jonny makes muffled noises whenever he accidentally presses down too hard on a place that's sensitive, but he allows the exploration. Except for a few small dots, it's stopped bleeding already.

When Sidney finishes tracing the design, he glances up to check for a reaction. Jonny's face is soft and peaceful, and Sidney can't resist wanting to be closer to him, leaning over to touch foreheads so that they're sharing air. Jonny tips his chin up and their mouths smooth together instantly, easily, medals clinking against each other as Sidney bends further, hovering over Jonny's body so that his weight won't hurt. "It's okay," Jonny whispers into his mouth and pulls him down, so Sidney stretches out and allows himself to enjoy how easy it all seems now. It surprises him to find that Jonny's hard; between his preoccupation with the Rings and his anxiety to make sure Jonny wasn't injured, he hadn't noticed earlier. 

"So not too much blood loss," Sidney says, and earns a laugh.

"No, I think I'm good."

"We should bandage your chest."

Jonny makes an unhappy sound, but allows Sidney to straighten up, straddling him, and fetch the gauze. They've both done this part countless times for bruises or scrapes or small cuts, the daily price of playing hockey, so creating a gauze pad and taping it protectively over the cut is the work of a few seconds. Sidney is in the process of ripping off tape strips when Jonny says, "Oh, no."

"What?" Sidney's gaze darts immediately to Jonny's ribs, hoping there's nothing wrong with the wound.

"Your ribbon." One hand reaches up and Jonny touches Sidney's medal ribbon, a few inches above the medal. There's a dark spot, about an inch long. Blood. Sidney stares at it, touches. It's still wet.

"It's okay."

"You'll have to get it cleaned."

Sidney touches the spot again. Suddenly, irrationally, he doesn't want it gone. Years from now, when all of this is a distant memory, the spot will be evidence that this crazy night happened. They fought together to become a team, they leaned on and carried each other on the journey there, they won the only medal that mattered on their home soil, and Jonny will wear a mark Sidney made on him for the rest of his life. If he thinks about it too hard, the whole thing already seems impossible. Now he has proof.

"It's okay," Sidney repeats, and stretches his face into a crooked smile. "Is it weird that I kind of like it?"

Jonny's hand drops back to the gauze pad on his chest. "You're asking me about weird? After that?"

"Point."

When the tape job is finished, Sidney evades the attempts to pull him back down, and instead stretches out at Jonny's side. This development merits an unhappy grunt, which dissolves to a moan when Sidney gets his hand down to play with Jonny's balls.

"Oh. Yeah." Jonny's eyes slide closed. Watching him like this touches the deep vein of possessiveness Sidney is beginning to realize he owns. It makes him want to give something back, something to make Jonny feel good in exchange for the earlier pain.

"Keep your eyes closed." He slides down the bed, knows that Jonny will feel the motion but hoping he won't guess the intention behind it. When he's eye-level with Jonny's hips and staring, Sidney doesn't give himself any time to consider. He'll back out of this plan if he considers it too hard, so he doesn't give his brain time to protest before he leans over and licks out, sucks the head of Jonny's cock into his mouth.

He nearly gets hit in the head for his troubles, as Jonny curls so far off the bed he's practically sitting up. "Sidney! What --. I --. Are you --."

Sidney pulls off for long enough to say, "If you ask if I'm sure, I'm going to hit you," and Jonny shuts up gratifyingly quickly.

It isn't easy, really, because at first Sidney has no idea what to do with his tongue, which mostly seems to be in the way. Girls clearly are born with some sort of innate knowledge of this that he is lacking; Sidney can't figure out how to get more than an inch into his mouth at a time, and he's pretty sure there's no way it feels good. For a moment, Jonny's hands hover anxiously above his head, but then they settle in his hair and pet him lightly, soothing. When he seems bent on continuing, Jonny eventually spreads his legs and uses tentative prods to the shoulders until Sidney climbs between them, which makes the angle much easier.

After a few minutes, when he figures out how to use his hands and gets the hang of breathing in rhythm, Sidney begins to think that he might actually be doing a decent job. Jonny makes growling noises whenever he finds a good spot and the hands in his hair have migrated to feather touches against his jaw and cheek. He thinks that Jonny might like to feel the way he stretches Sidney's mouth, and it's actually sort of hot to think about Jonny getting off on the idea that Sidney has trouble taking him. Sidney uses one hand to keep from overshooting his gag reflex, but the other wanders: over Jonny's balls, up to touch the gauze pad, further to the captain's C and tight nipples, down again to the thin skin of inner thigh. When his mouth gets sore, he pulls back and jerks roughly, enough spit to make things so easy, and Jonny comes quickly with a loud broken noise and an arch in his back that has to be pulling on the wound in painful ways.

Sidney watches through the panting until Jonny goes limp, touches with light fingers at various scars and sometimes at mouth or ears. Finally Jonny rolls over and takes him in hand, jerking slowly and tortuously until Sidney is almost ready to push him away and just finish the job himself. He refrains, though, makes it last as long as he can, demands kisses and pushes Jonny's fingers towards places that will feel good but won't quite put him over the edge. When he does eventually come, he's careful that nothing gets on the gauze.

They doze off at 7 a.m., still touching. His flight leaves at 11.

*

It's a long way from Vancouver to Pittsburgh. 4300 miles, according to the pilot's announcement. Sidney spends most of them asleep, exhausted from the game and the parties afterward and the lack of sleep with Jonny after that. He doesn't regret any of it. There's not a lot that's memorable between Vancouver and Pittsburgh anyway.

The medal is still a heavy weight around his neck, tucked beneath his shirt where it's not obvious to anyone except the airport's metal detectors. Twice during the flight, he pulls it out to look at it, rubbing the dips and crests of its funny undulating shape, examining the contours of the tiny stylized hockey player on the back that marks the sport it commemorates. On the front side is the raised emblem of the Rings, seared into the lower corner -- like a scar, thinks Sidney. The blood spot on the ribbon is on the same side as the Rings. It's dried into the fabric now, a dark stain on the otherwise pristine blue-green.

He wonders what he'll tell the press when he gets back to Pittsburgh. They'll want to see the medal, and someone will notice the stain. He can cover it with his fingers if he's lifting the medal to show it off, but he can't very well cover it when the medal is hanging around his neck. Perhaps he won't tell them anything. Let them speculate; there's nothing they could come up with that would be remotely like the truth.

The flight attendant's cart shuffles by to ask about beverage preferences. Flower, who's sitting beside him, orders juice. Sidney orders water, drinks the bottle he's handed, and closes his eyes to sleep again.

Jonny had kissed him that morning, just before they both left for their separate planes. It was the only time they'd ever kissed standing up, and Jonny was suddenly taller by several inches. The angles were new and awkward, uneasy, and it felt like goodbye ought: neither of them sure what they were doing, but needing to do it anyway. Sidney had laid his hand over the fresh gauze pad on Jonny's side.

"Next time I'm in Pittsburgh," Jonny had said, and Sidney said, "Yes," unsure whether they were agreeing to supper or sex or merely a friendly hello. Then, because he needed to be certain of one thing, he'd said, "I want to see this," squeezing his fingers a little into the gauze. It might have hurt, because Jonny growled, but Sidney didn't care. "Next time. When you're --. I want to see."

Jonny had kissed him again, and Sidney is pretty sure that meant yes.

"You have a spot," says Flower, reaching over to touch the ribbon. Sidney opens his eyes and looks down at where his seatmate is pointing, then holds the ribbon away, feeling irrationally protective of the bloodstain.

"I know."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"How'd you manage to mess it up? You didn't have a spot there when you left the party, I know it."

Sidney opens his mouth. What comes out is, "It's a gift." Flower shrugs and turns back to his juice. Sidney closes his eyes again.

For a moment, just before he had dozed off with Jonny that morning, he had wished that it could never end. That he could live the rest of his life in that space of early morning hours, with the weight of winning around his neck and the strange comfort of another body nestled against him; with gentle wind that smelled like the ozone-and-spices scent of the Games; with snow in the air and the promise of ice on the ground smooth and perfect when the sun rose.

He steps out of the airport at 9 p.m. in Pittsburgh, into gusting wind and sleet mixed with rain, the pollution and exhaust smell of cabs, two black and gold t-shirts in the line with him for baggage claims. _I'm home_ , thinks Sidney.

*

_fin_

*

**Author's Note:**

> For a link to the wonderful soundtrack that slowascent created for this story, try [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?babiby23cc7elpg). Again, I cannot thank her enough for the beautiful artwork that she created for this story; three years later I'm still in awe.
> 
> The title of this story is drawn from a Stan Rogers lyric, and is his creation, not mine.


End file.
